What is training gamification?

Training gamification involves using game-like incentives to engage employees, reward certain behaviors and build a stronger team spirit.

Gamification can help turn dry training materials into fun, engaging and rewarding content. The idea of making mundane things a game isn’t really new. You’ll find many examples of gamification in loyalty apps, social media platforms and traditional education.

Gamifying training is an extension of this idea. By using high scores, achievements, badges and other similar metrics, training providers can increase engagement with their material, hopefully improving retention and making the training experience more enjoyable for everyone involved.

The benefits of training gamification

Because gamification provides feedback to users when they engage in certain behaviors, using it can make training material more interesting while also helping people feel more motivated to complete a course. Small incentives such as badges, points or rewards serve as external motivation, which can be helpful if the content is dry or difficult.

Adding game-like elements to training materials can provide learners with a sense of achievement when they complete a task. It can also encourage people to study a little harder or try to complete the training more promptly so they can show off to others on their team.

Some of the key benefits of gamification include:

• Increased retention of training materials
• Increased engagement
• Gets employees to refer to the training materials more often
• Training delivery that can adapt to the employee’s needs
• Team tasks that offer a chance to build social cohesion with colleagues

Perhaps one of the best examples of gamification is the way the language learning app Duolingo keeps track of streaks. Users are encouraged to log in to the app and do a little bit every day. Significant milestones, such as 100 days or 1 year, are highlighted, and users learn to value their streak so they’re more likely to make an effort to use the app even if they’re busy. Consistency is an essential part of learning a language, so it makes sense to incentivize this behavior.

With the right tools, implementing game-like elements into your training can be simple and inexpensive. Online learning platforms such as Moodle already offer the option to add badges, progress bars, quizzes and other similar features.

Read More: Employee Training Evaluation: Tools and Best Practices

The downsides of gamification

To work well, gamified training must be implemented carefully, and any rewards must match the effort put in. If major incentives are tied to something such as watching a specific number of videos or using the training app daily for a month, users who fall short of that metric but have completed the training and fully understand the content could feel alienated.

Gamification can sometimes incentivize behavior in unexpected ways. For example, GitHub offers badges for performing certain tasks, such as having a pull request approved. They’ve even occasionally given away free T-shirts to students who made their first pull request. These giveaways have led to some individuals making low-effort pull requests simply to qualify for the badge or the free gift.

Whenever there’s a game with rules, it’s likely someone will try to cheat the system. For example, if you offered a prize to the person who showed the greatest improvement on a test, this could lead to people trying to deliberately get a poor score on their test so that when they retest, they show more improvement.

In contrast, if rewards are tied to the performance of a team, and there’s a person on that team who’s known to be a little weaker in certain areas than the other team members, the more knowledgeable or proficient team members might choose not to try as hard because they think their efforts will go to waste.

When designing a gamification system, it’s important to take into account these incentives (and disincentives).

Read More: Employee Training: Do’s and Don’ts for Every Manager

How to use gamification

Gamification is about much more than just points, leaderboards and badges. A well-designed gamification system offers a variety of incentives and challenges and rewards people for making an effort in ways that go beyond what they’re required to do.

Employee wellness programs are an interesting example of this. Programs that reward employees for weight loss or for stopping smoking may be met with hostility by those who have no interest in losing weight or who don’t smoke. Programs that allow users to set themselves tasks or goals, such as going to the gym or meditating for 10 minutes per day, help employees build positive habits and challenge those employees in a way that’s meaningful to them.

It’s possible to gamify training in a similar way. Training apps can test an employee’s knowledge, then give them problems or questions pitched at a level that challenges them. Someone who’s studying to re certify might be given more challenging questions than a newer employee learning the job for the first time.

Leaderboards can be used as an element of gamification. However, having employees compete against each other may not be conducive to a positive environment. Using leaderboards to highlight positive things rather than show areas where someone is struggling is a good approach.

In addition to leaderboards, achievements and competitive challenges, you can use other gamification elements to provide instant feedback to an employee without making them feel under pressure. These include:

• Progress bars
• Milestones/levels
• Personal challenges/dynamic goals

For example, a person can work through a chapter of a training document and be shown how far through they are at any time. When they finish a chapter and pass a quiz, the training app informs them that they’ve completed Level 1 (or Chapter 1) of the training. They can come back later to complete the next chapter or continue studying.

When the employee starts using the app, they can set a goal of studying for a certain amount of time or completing a certain amount of content each day. The app then sends reminder alerts each day at a set time to help the learner work toward their target. If they’re consistently achieving that goal, the app might ask them if they’d like to increase their targets. If they’re struggling to reach that goal, they’re invited to reduce their target.

Read More: How to Create an Effective Employee Training and Development Program

Gamification rewards rather than punishes

One important thing to remember is that gamification should reward people rather than punish them. Consider making gamification opt-in and allowing those who would prefer to study training materials in a more traditional way to do so.

Use gamification as a way to augment high-quality training materials, and you should find engagement and retention of those materials increases.

Frequently asked questions about training gamification

What are the advantages of gamification in training?

Gamification can make training more engaging. When you employ gamification, training becomes fun and rewarding and employees are more likely to pay attention and try to complete all of the content.

What are the disadvantages of gamification?

While well-designed gamification training can keep employees engaged. However, if it’s poorly implemented, it may cause people to try to game the system without understanding the true motivations. Gamification is useful when employed alongside high-quality content, but it isn’t a replacement for good training material.

Is gamification unethical?

Some gamification projects could be considered unethical if they train participants to chase points and badges without understanding the reason behind their actions. It’s important to keep this in mind when designing gamified apps.