Enhance Workplace Motivation by Boosting Employee Engagement with Gamification

What are the Top Five Motivational Factors?

Motivational factors are incentives and initiatives used by companies to increase employees’ motivation to perform their duties. As a CEO or director, you can combine several strategies to increase employee engagement and productivity.

Recognition:

The desire for appreciation is human nature. According to a recent study, personal recognition is the top motivator for . Another report found that 84% of highly engaged employees were recognized for going over and beyond their duties. Appreciating employees for their efforts and contribution can motivate them to do more.

Communication:

How you convey mission-critical information and ideas as an Executive can influence employees’ motivation on so many levels. Some employees won’t stay committed to their tasks if they don’t know the end goal. Being in the dark is disorienting and demoralizing. To boost employees’ motivation, set clear short-term and long-term goals and communicate them accurately and vividly. Positive and transparent leadership can help employees stay motivated.

Working Environment:

Did you know that happiness can increase business productivity by 31%? And all you have to do is create some room for fun in the workplace. Boring and workplace should not be in the same sentence, period! “All work but no play makes Jack a dull boy (unproductive)” comes to mind. The perception of bias or unfairness can also undermine employees’ motivation and engagement. To motivate your employees, nurture a fun and inclusive work environment.

Compensation and Rewarding:

Nothing is more demoralizing than not knowing whether you’ll be compensated for your efforts. If top-performers are overlooked for promotions, their motivation and productivity will plummet. Being fair and transparent in pay increases and rewards is an effective way to eliminate perceptions of favoritism and distrust in your workforce. If everyone knows why “X” got a pay hike, there is no opportunity for rumor mongers to exploit. As a C Suite, never undermine the impact of perceptions on team spirit and motivation.

Competition:

Without competition in the workplace, top performers will become comfortable. There is no motivation to work hard in the comfort zone. Cut-throat competition can discourage low performers and average employees. Why put in extra effort if they cannot outperform top players? Competition is a sword-edged sword. To motivate employees, nurture healthy competition. This motivational factor can keep Millennials and Gen Z on their toes in the workplace.

While motivational strategies are straightforward, the implementation is easier said than done. In today’s digital age, companies leverage flexible employment models like work-from-home and remote workforces. If your employees are scattered worldwide, in-person talks may not be the best strategy to motivate your workforce.

The 21st-century workplace is bombarded by tons of data from different sources. From interns to top-level management, no one is immune to data drown and the mind-numbing mental overload. It is difficult to motivate employees exposed to endless cycles of breaking news. First culprit, social media. Sticking to traditional motivational strategies in today’s digital age is counterproductive.

As a C Suite or Director, you understand the benefits of automation. Can you automate employee motivation? Yes, you can! Gamification solutions like ZIZO offer a more targeted approach to motivate your employees and boost their engagement and productivity.

How Gamification Motivates Users by Leveraging Motivational Factors?

Gamification allows companies to incorporate game-oriented elements and thinking in nongame applications. The best gamification software leverage gaming mechanics to automate and simplify how companies motivate employees. These systems are more psychology-oriented than technology-oriented, with 75% psychology and 25% technology.

The psychology behind gamification anchors on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. According to Maslow, individuals have physiological, security, belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization needs. Each need must be addressed and fulfilled for an employee to feel complete (self-actualized). In the 21^st century, employees’ self-actualization needs consist of three motivational factors – Purpose, Autonomy, and Mastery.

This model argues that individuals are motivated to act if the action will fulfill their needs. So, gamification in the workplace exploits this psychology of motivation to encourage employees to engage more in work-related activities. Game developers link gaming mechanics to these needs and integrate nongame applications. So, how does gamification leverage motivational factors to motivate users on multiple levels?

Guarantees Recognition:

A HubSpot study found that 69% of employees are more motivated if they feel appreciated in the workplace. Automating appreciation with gamification is a no-brainer. The best employee gamification tools eliminate human bias and discrimination from the equation. Whenever a user completes a task or level, they receive instant recognition. It fulfills employees’ security and self-actualization needs by guaranteeing recognition and appreciation for their efforts. So, more employees are motivated to engage in work-related activities. Many will do more than the bare minimum to be recognized and appreciated.

Improves Communication:

With gamification, you incorporate vital information and ideas into the game. It guarantees accurate and consistent communication organization-wide. For example, you can use a gamification tool to educate younger and older employees on the company’s values and culture. It enhances transparency and eliminates miscommunication, which can boost employees’ motivation and commitment to their tasks.

Fun and Inclusive Workplace:

You can incorporate social elements like collaborations in your game design to address employees’ belongingness needs. A gamification tool with social feed functions mechanics offers a safe venue for socializing. It can motivate anti-social or shy employees to engage with colleagues more in the workplace. Employee gamification adds an element of fun to each job. Goodbye boredom! As a company, gamification can also help you nurture an inclusive work environment and leverage this motivational factor to boost employee engagement.

Rewarding:

Gamification software fulfills employees’ esteem needs by rewarding top-performers. You can design a gamification tool that rewards users on multiple levels for completing specific milestones. This motivational factor can also encourage users on different skill levels to engage, improve, and win more rewards. Rewarding through gamification is instant, fair, and transparent. So, it eliminates perceptions of favoritism and distrust in the workplace.

Enhances Competition:

Gamification provides a level playing field for employees at all levels to engage and compete for recognition and rewards. For example, a sale include short milestones with goodies for the first salesperson to reach it. It will enhance competition and motivate your sales reps to work harder.

Gamification offers an effective solution to motivate employees at all levels and departments. It can help you increase employee engagement and productivity throughout your organization.

Should You Use Gamification? How Gamification Motivates Employees?

Gamification is a growing trend in different fields, from HR to sales, customer care, marketing, and product development. As a C Suite or Director, you can use robust gamification software like ZIZO to simplify employee motivation and engagement improvement.

Sales:

At its core, gamification is the convergence of productivity and technology. It leverages recognition and reward and enhances communication and competition. These motivational factors can improve employee engagement and collaboration, which are ingredients for success in sales. Think of a salesperson of the year! Do you appreciate them enough? If you’re not sure, consider using sales gamification. It is a must-have for organizations with a large sales team. With employee gamification, you’ll be 100% sure that all top performers are valued and rewarded for their efforts. It can motivate your sales reps to compete and collaborate, leading to higher sales!

Customer Support:

Customer support is the last line of defense. How they handle a disgruntled customer determines whether your company will retain or lose that client. It requires empathy, experience, and communication skills. Call center gamification offers a controlled environment to train call center agents and customer support teams before deploying them to the frontline. You can offer rewards through gamification to motivate experienced members to share their insights and strategies with newbies and other members.

Learning and Development:

Learning new skills is not as fun as it sounds. But it is essential for employee development and growth. Gamification can solve this dilemma for you. Applying game-oriented thinking to learning processes can benefit manufacturers and tech companies with several technical skill levels. It offers an interactive solution that makes learning more engaging and fun for employees. Gamifying technical course is an effective strategy to motivate your employees to learn new skills.

Human Resources:

Efficient communication is crucial for success in HR. As HR, you have to instill corporate culture into employees on multiple levels. Gamification can help communicate the company’s mission, values, and culture to all users. It is an effective way to motivate adherence to corporate culture organization-wide. As a company, use gamification to motivate HR professionals to implement best practices.

Marketing:

Like sales, marketing is more practical than theoretical. Mastering the art of prospect persuasion takes time. No one is born the top marketer. It is earned through years of experience in the field. With gamification, you can train your marketing team without setting a foot outdoors. You can design a gamification solution that simulates conversations between your marketers and stubborn potential customers. It will motivate your team to learn new marketing strategies, such as using social media for marketing. They’ll also get some experience of what to expect out there in the field. In a sense, gamification brings the market into your premises.

Gamification can also motivate product development teams to collaborate and help them become more creative. As a C Suite or Director, you can leverage gamification benefits across different departments in your organization.

Gamification and Motivation — Examples of Companies Using Gamification to Motivate Employees

More organizations are leveraging game-design elements in non-game applications. Here are three companies that have successfully implemented gamification in their employee motivation strategies:

Cisco:

Cisco unveiled a global social media training program for its employees. It had 46 courses, which discouraged employees from enrolling. To address this challenge, Cisco gamified the program with three levels of certification and several teamwork and collaboration challenges. Gamification simplified the program, encouraged competition, and motivated more employees to join and get certified.

Microsoft:

Microsoft offers its products globally with specific language localization requirements. To ensure accurate translations in all languages, the company developed the ‘Language Quality’ game. The game simplified language accuracy checks and introduced the leaderboard to enhance competition. As a result, more Microsoft employees were motivated to engage in this game and improve translations of their native languages.

SAP:

SAP offers complex ERP solutions. The company developed a gamification app known as RoadWarrior to ensure its sales reps have sufficient knowledge of the products. The game simulates conversing with a customer and offers rewards like badges. It also displays the top-performing sales rep on the leaderboard. SAP’s gamification motivated more employees to engage in the process and learn, leading to higher sales.

Benefits of Using Gamification to Motivate Employees

Employee gamification offers several benefits for your company. Here are some business values of using gamification.

Cost-Effective:

According to research, some organizations spend around $720 million annually on engagement improvement. Gamification offers a more cost-effective option to motivate workers and improve engagement. It rewards employees at a lower cost compared to other rewarding alternatives.

Time-Efficient:

It can take several months to meet and encourage thousands of employees. Gamification reaches all users on multiple levels. As a C Suite or Director, gamification allows you to motivate your entire team with the click of a button.

Long-lasting effect:

Gamification has a long-lasting psychological impact. You can use a system with a leaderboard to display the top salesman and their rewards throughout the company. They will keep this prestigious position on the board and brag about it until they are dethroned by another sales rep. So, recognition through gamification is more visible and longer-lasting than a ‘thank-you.’

Enhance tech adoption:

You can embed gamification tools in your existing systems like CRM and online sales platforms. It will encourage your employees to adopt and use these technologies more often.

Future-proof solution:

Gamification is enticing for younger generations. You can use gamified solutions to motivate Millennials and Gen Z, the future workforce.

Boost competition and collaboration:

Incorporating social mechanics like chat rooms, groups, and teams in your gamification tool can facilitate and nurture collaboration in projects. You can use a solution with a leaderboard to cultivate healthy competition between employees.

Instant feedback:

The best gamification solution offers instant rewards as soon as the user fulfills the requirement. Rewarded employees also respond in real-time, providing C Suites and Directors instant feedback.

Enhance creativity:

Rewarding innovative employees using gamification can enhance creativity organization-wide. It will motivate other employees to become more creative to win rewards.

Gamification is a gift that keeps giving, with limitless potential. To exploit all these benefits, use an innovative gamification solution like ZIZO.

Bottom Line

Since time immemorial, companies have relied on physical rewards and traditional strategies to motivate employees and improve engagement and productivity. But the challenges in the 21^st century require more targeted solutions. As C Suite or Director, you can use gamification to leverage the top motivational factors and motivate employees on multiple levels. Employee gamification offers tons of benefits, including improved engagement, higher productivity, lower cost, and many more.

ZIZO is a leading gamification solution that allows companies to apply gaming mechanics to nongame environments. As a C Suite, Director, or other management professionals, you can rely on ZIZO to exploit the benefits of gamification in the workplace. To get the most out of gamification, contact us today!