Imagine a world where you won’t have to tell your employees that they are “under performing” or simply “meeting expectations” during a performance review meeting. Here lies an HR challenge that has left many employees disheartened. Instead, if you were to tell them that they didn’t clear the second level of the game, they’d probably receive the news with renewed drive to do better. You’ll keep their motivation levels intact and they’ll likely seek your counsel on how to improve. Simply put, their willingness to achieve more would remain untarnished. In fact, they’ll approach the feedback with much more positivity and enthusiasm. And you will be successful in maintaining employee behavior that’s reflective of a high performing team.

Making a Dream a Reality

This isn’t a dream – it’s a possibility that has become a reality thanks to gamification and its ability of managing employee behavior. Gamification offers its users (your employees) new ways of aligning their performance and behavior with the organizational goals. Furthermore, thanks to its versatility and how it can be customized to your organization’s specific needs it offers a solution to much of your HR challenge.

What you’re gaining from gamification is the ability to finally get rid of performance ratings that are skewed, biased and often full of subjectivity. In its place you’re creating an environment where leaderboards display employees’ performance so that they’re fully and transparently aware of how they’re performing against their colleagues and how their contributions are adding up to the organization’s goals. And using badges you’ll reward their contributions and performance taking them to higher levels in the game.

All this can further be enhanced using internal social media. Through various channels where employees interact, the new chatter among your employees will be whose leading and how well they all are doing in the game. This obviously then boosts employee engagement and facilitates cohesiveness in employees across all functions.

The Impact of Gamification on HR

If you consider the lifecycle of a candidate’s journey in a company, it all starts from the recruitment process. This is where companies are hunting for, screening, assessing and inducting new talent into their culture. This is where gamification makes its first impact. At The Talent Games, we recognize just how important finding the right talent is and how the recruitment process can be significantly made effective and efficient through the application of gamification. However, hiring the ‘right’ talent doesn’t solve all your HR challenges.

Companies across the globe who’ve been using gamification to revamp their recruitment process have taken steps forward to reap benefits across the entire HR value chain. Attracting talent is the first step beyond which gamification has also impacted onboarding, training, engaging, motivating, retaining and exploiting your talent’s full potential. We’re talking about the entire employee experience which is being enhanced through gamification. Companies can now nurture a culture that’s representative of its ethos and promote employee behavior that’s in line with its goals, objectives, values and purpose. The impact as a result is higher quality hires, enriched cultures, enhanced employee engagement and productivity and, eventually, more satisfied customers.

Where has gamification made an impact? Unilever uses it to impart train to its employees. SAP has been educating its employees on suitability using games. Khan Academy is using it for its online education platform. And Hays has been using it to hire recruiters.

If you’ve been puzzled and often find yourself scratching your head over the HR challenge of hiring, retaining, building, motivating and engaging talent then gamification is just the solution your organization is thirsting for. If you’re ready to take on the HR challenge then The Talent Games can help you with an innovative and exciting solution.

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Paul Keijzer is the CEO and Founder of Engage Consulting and the co-Founder of The Talent Games, which aims to transform HR by digitising talent processes and creating more engaging and productive workplaces through gamification and mobile technology. As a global HR and Leadership Management expert, Paul knows how to combine business insights with people insights to transform organisations and put them on the path to growth.