Why you should gamify your training and development
Training and development are crucial to your business. By getting it right, you can quickly assimilate new hires, before helping them to develop with the business.
There are traditional ways to oversee this onboarding process, such as induction days, social events and supervised work. But gamifying your training and development can help expedite this process. Read on to find out why you should gamify your training and development.
What is gamification?
Gamification refers to the process of incorporating game-like elements into your business strategies. For instance, Duolingo uses gamification to make the process of learning a new language more addictive and exciting.
Instead of learning a language in a traditional classroom setting, you learn it through a series of bright and colourful games. This idea can be applied to all aspects of business, from training to marketing strategies.
How can it be used for work?
Gamifying can be used particularly well in training and development. Part of this is down to the level up principle. This refers to our natural curiosity to find out what’s coming next in a game. You can embed this idea into your training by creating levels: if your employee is learning to use a new piece of software, you can gamify it by requesting tasks to be completed before moving on to the next stage.
On top of this, games also motivate us through leader boards and rewards. By creating a healthy leader board for new recruits, combined with office prizes, you can quickly increase productivity by gamifying your training process.
The benefits of gamification
Gamification provides many benefits during training and development. One benefit is that it increases employee engagement during training: gamified training motivates employees more and can help them stick with their development.
As a result, you’ll find that employees develop more effectively and move upwards through the company, increasing job satisfaction and your retention rate. A higher retention rate means that fewer resources are used on recruitment and training. Gamification in tandem with financial planning software can take your business to the next level.
The psychology behind gamification
The psychology behind gamification explains its success. For a start, it gives the user more control and humans are usually much more engaged when they have agency in a situation. On top of this, by tracking our progress, gamified training can help set our goals and understand how far we’ve got to go. This can give the user a dopamine reward and reinforce the right behaviour.
Training and development are essential for businesses. And by following the guide above, you should be set to add gamification to your processes and enjoy the boost in productivity.
Photo by Israel Andrade
