Workplace engagement figures are staggeringly low, which can lead to poor productivity, unnecessarily long hours in the office, or poor performance in general. Some offices attempt to combat this issue by offering a more enjoyable environment with amenities such as games rooms, ping pong tables, and other fun activities. If you are searching for ways to create a fun, engaging environment for your employees without the amenities, you may want to consider the concept of gamification. Gamification turns job tasks into a game, reenergizing the workforce to attack their job like they haven’t in years. If you want to boost the productivity of your office through gamification, then here are five ways to do so:
Offer Prizes
Everyone loves a good prize, especially one they can display on their desk as a signal of achievement. Create some cool, branded corporate gifts that are prizes for certain activities. You can both reward your employee and enjoy free advertisement for your company if they take it outside the office.
Start Simple
Your game does not have to have an intricate design to it. It can start with nothing more than an Excel spreadsheet or a whiteboard where you assign points to different activities. Starting simple allows you to grow and change the game as you see what motivates your employees the most: is it the competition of seeing their performance relative to others or is it a large number of points they earn for completing a difficult task?
Create Levels
As you explore what motivates your employees, one way to make difficult tasks more desirable is by offering employees the chance to “level up” if they achieve them. The various levels can correlate to intrinsic or extrinsic rewards. For example, each employee’s level can be displayed on a color or number inside or outside an employee’s workspace. When they move up a level by completing some difficult task, that indicator changes accordingly. Another way to incorporate levels is by offering a different range of prizes for each level achieved.
Make Your Own Quiz Show
If you want to make sure your employees know all the details of a new product or service, divide them up into teams to participate in your very own office quiz show. Have each team choose a name and create some kind of prize or trophy for the winning team or top three teams, depending on the size of your office.
Create a Video Game
Some companies have created actual video games that employees can play. Tedious topics like training materials become a lot more fun if they are incorporated into a video game that employees can work their way through. Other companies use video games to work on management skills. Instead of sitting through a potentially boring lecture to learn management concepts, employees play a game where they are the manager of an office. They can see how the various decisions they make affect morale, revenue, and advancement through the organization.
Office tasks do not have to be monotonous or dull. Engage your workforce and boost productivity by gamifying your workplace. Start simple and see what works, then create levels from there. Determine what motivates your employees the most—prizes or just plain old competition—and structure your games accordingly. If possible, create a quiz show or video game to test knowledge or make tedious topics more palatable. You may find that your efforts to engage and motivate your employees end up doing the same for you.
