Gamification Boosts Employee Engagement: 8 Important Benefits

By now, most HR pros realize that introducing gamification doesn’t mean hooking up PlayStations and calling it a day.

Instead, gamification means using learning management software (LMS) or any other eLearning tool to stimulate training by converting work activity into a more game-like experience.

And if you haven’t tried it yet, you might want to jump on the bandwagon.

Gamification boosts employee engagement by making training, and other mundane tasks, more exciting and appealing. How so?                      

Gamification taps into the same human motivations that make “games” entertaining to incentivize trainees, creating a more proficient learning and training model. As a result, gamification increases employee engagement and knowledge retention.

Here are some stats from a 2023 study to back that up:

• 83% of workers who receive gamified training feel motivated, while 61% of employees who receive regular training without any gamification elements feel bored.
• 90% of employees believe they’re more productive when applying gamification.
• Employee engagement increases by 48% when workers have a gamified work experience.
• Companies that use gamification are seven times more profitable than competitors that don’t use gamified elements at work.
• 72% of employees say gamification motivates them to work harder on the job.
• A gamified workspace increases employee happiness by 89%.

Benefits of gamification in employee engagement & training

Wondering how incorporating gamification into your LMS can improve employee training?

Here are eight key benefits of using gamification as part of your employee training strategy.

1. Employee feedback

Your employees can receive constant, updated, and automatic feedback through gamification. You can include different leaderboards in your online training software so that workers can observe how they’re doing compared to the yardsticks they’ve set for themselves. They can even compare their performance to their fellow workers within the company.

Undoubtedly, feedback is one of the most significant features of gameful design, as it allows learners to continuously comprehend how they’re doing and what measures they can take to enhance their performance.

2. Employee recognition

Nearly 58% of workers believe employee recognition is how managers could do more to increase employee engagement. This clearly shows that employee recognition is just as important as financial rewards.

Who doesn’t want to feel acknowledged and appreciated? We all want to know that we’re doing a great job, and that our hard work is being accepted by our bosses.

Gameful training is an effective way to observe which employee is performing particularly well, which one has improved drastically, and which employee may have wafted off and might need a slight warning.

The best part is that it’s all carried out automatically, making it stress-free for supervisors to manage.

3. Skill development and improvement

One of the greatest benefits of adding gamification elements to your LMS is providing ample opportunities to your employees for learning and self-improvement.

The feeling of learning a particular skill is a significant aspect of accomplishment and happiness in the office.

A gameful training design allows employees to discover new things, and see how they’re becoming easier and easier over time. And before they even realize it, something that used to be exceptionally challenging becomes easier.

4. Motivation and encouragement

Competing and succeeding are innate human characteristics. We all want to win and surpass others, don’t we?

By converting boring courses into gamified sessions, you can encourage employees to compete with one another. 

This way, they feel more motivated to participate in training and give their best effort to appear on the top of the leaderboard.

5. Employee engagement

Gamification is a potent engagement tool that produces actual behavior variation by working with your brain chemistry.

Gamified training feels awe-inspiring as it activates a strong gush of happy hormones. It makes your brain say, “Whatever you just did, keep doing it!”

So when your employees enjoy learning, they feel involved and desire more. But when learning is uninteresting, the happy aspect disappears. 

This means you can use gamification to put the happiness back into your online learning initiatives.

6. Autonomy and self-paced learning

Unlike customary class-based training programs, gamified learning allows employees to select their own schedule to start a training course or module.

All thanks to technological developments, your employees can access training content from any part of the world, via any device, and at any time.

7. Emotional resilience

Did you know that gamification can change your emotional responses and improve resilience?

But why is emotional resilience important? Because it’s strongly related to engagement in the workplace.

By incorporating a gamified training program, you can increase your employees’ resilience and poise. If they know there’s a prize or the opportunity to level up at the end of a challenging learning task, they’ll be more determined to do well. 

Rather than feeling frustrated when confronted with a difficult subject, they’ll rise and shine through the challenge.

8. Teamwork and shared success

Only a few things activate that heartfelt, fuzzy sentiment more than rejoicing in success together. No matter how distant your teams are, gamified training allows them to cheer their co-workers’ accomplishments on the online training software.

Computer-generated prizes such as badges and points appear on every user’s profile area and turn up on the newsfeed of their online learning software. So every time somebody attains an Acclaim Badge or Experience Points, their co-workers can applaud them with virtual claps or a thumbs up!

Plus, you can arrange online tournaments between different departments that encourage teamwork among employees, along with fun-filled learning.

It’s important to remember that gamification shouldn’t be done just for the sake of making training entertaining.

There should be a definite aim, an objective that you want employees to achieve. Without any clear aim, the learning will fail to create an impact, which means no retention and a waste of time, funds and energy.

Setting an aim for learning and gamification will allow your employees to hark back to what’s being conveyed. As humans, we‘re more likely to recollect actions than words. If the aim is unknown, your employees will probably get muddled and lose vision.

 And a player who’s muddled can never win the game. Similarly, employees who are confused about training purposes will fail to gain important takeaways.