Gamification is so Hot Right Now
Gamification is a hot topic these days. Most instructional designers have worked some sort of gamified process into their courses over the past five years. I believe in the benefit of incorporating games into training and e-learning scenarios. A thoughtfully designed and relevant game can motivate workers and strengthen their engagement. But a poorly designed game could do just the opposite.
Gamifying a process or activity just for the sake of gamification could lead to poor results. And since gamification is now so prevalent, I believe there is a lot of “just-turn-it-into-a-game” thinking out there that will lead to poorly designed and developed workplace games. While I didn’t agree with everything in this Adam Penenberg interview (old but still a good read), I was nodding along while reading prediction 3: “There will be a lot of bad gamification”.
Along those same lines, I think gamification to some extent needs to be voluntary. If you’ve ever played a game you didn’t really want to play (ahem, me playing Monopoly with my 10-yr old!) you know that you are not enjoying yourself, you mentally-check out, and you kind of end up resenting the game that’s supposed to be fun. Not so problematic in a parent/child Monopoly match, but much more problematic if those same outcomes happen in the workplace in required training. Building in a way to bypass the game or making the game mechanics passive (i.e. they happen through the natural progression of the course and do not require additional actions or input from the learner) may be a way to counteract this issue.
Gamification for all its positives is not a cure-all for what might ail an unmotivated or demoralized workforce. Games, while they may be enjoyable, will only serve as a temporary distraction from real, underlying cultural problems within an organization. For example if a corporation creates a game to increase worker morale, but their other policies or expectations work against that goal (for example a terrible PTO policy or expecting workers to be available on email or text at all hours) the game will have little or no effectiveness over time. Employees might be temporarily distracted, but they are smart enough to know that nothing is really substantially changing.
Games are worth the time, expense and effort in a work-setting if they are thoughtfully designed to address specific goals or achievable outcomes and are meaningful and relevant to employees. Companies need to evaluate if a game is a good fit for the problem they wish to address, and make sure that their other processes, procedures, and expectations of employees also align with that goal.