This is the second part of a two part series on gamification. If you’ve already read Part 1, then we implore you to continue onwards for the good of society. Okay, maybe that’s a little exaggeration on our part, the society could care less what you read. How about, game on?

The Top Five Reasons Why Every Business Should be Interested in Gamification

5. Increase Gamification And You Will Increase Productivity

Like we mentioned in step 7, the relationship between gamification support and productivity is rather obvious. The more gamification elements a business employs than the more productive the employees are going to be.

If a business implements a reward and achievement system to compliment the progression elements, then it stands to reason employees will always be working to earn more rewards.

Total progression and success is a hard thing to measure, but a gamification system does that exactly. It’s a little harder to ignore the work in front of you when everyone else can also see how unproductive you’ve been – peer pressure can sometimes be used for good. In fact, most of the time employees aren’t working it’s because they feel like they’re not being monitored. In a gamification system, everyone is being monitored but not in a creepy, hide in your closet sort of way.

4. Questing Just Sounds Cool, Even if it Involves a Trip to The Copy Room

Tasks can be boring, and we’ll go so far as to say that tasks can downright suck, but quests are awesome. In the gaming world, quests can be a long list of things; they can be anything from delivering a parcel, to saving a maiden in distress or slaying a giant beast.

With a proper gamification system in a work environment, employees could be completing quests every time they finish a task or project.

Corporate managers who are rather old fashioned, are most likely squinting their eyes this very second wondering what any of this has to do with productivity. The idea is quite simple actually.

If doing a menial task, like dropping a finished project off to management, nets experience and completes a gamification quest it’s almost a guarantee that employees will do it more often. Obviously the more quests a person completes, the more experience and rewards they will receive which in turn encourages them to be more productive.

Take that, you horribly dull corporate managers.

The Top Three Reasons Why Every Business Should Be Interested in Gamification

3. Leveling up at Work is Like Leveling up in The Real World, Only It’s For Real

Everyone loves to level up, it’s the new fad in gaming. Whether gamers are leveling up in the latest Call of Duty title or grinding away earning experience in Skyrim, they’re encouraged to continue working through a progress meter which is usually filled by earning experience. As experience continues to fill the progress meter, players are usually drawn in with a certain allure, and leveling up becomes addictive. This addiction to leveling up could also translate into the business world, and to employees, thanks to the ranking elements of a gamification system.

The basic idea of leveling is that it’s a measurement system which can be used to gauge a person or a player’s total progress. In life, it’s incredibly hard to measure success specifically, unless age is taken into account – and it stands to reason that age is rarely a true measure of one’s success or progression.

A leveling and ranking system can be used to determine how far someone has come, and how much farther they have to go to be considered one of the higher ups.

2. Who Doesn’t Like to Show Off Trophies And Achievements

In game environments, players are given a personalized profile which is used to show off achievements, trophies and progress. Player profiles are kind of like the modern business card, only they’re quite a bit cooler.

Player profiles track completed quests, experience earned, rewards and achievements and of course tell a little about each player and how they operate. The more you think about it, it’s hard to discredit the benefits of such a feature in a business environment.

Employees could personally track all progress and show off all work related opportunities and achievements, without having to do any extra work themselves. Obviously a proper tracking system would have to be implemented, which would mean more digital support in a business environment (for you less tech savvy folks out there, this basically means more computers and gadgets), but most everyone uses some type of electronic gadget these days.

Imagine how cool it would be if all the employees of a company could confirm they’ve completed a quest using their mobile phone. We agree that it would be freaking awesome.

It would also provide employees with a completely digitized professional portfolio which they could take with them wherever they go. We know how you business folk loathe doing nice things for your employees and how it downright pains you, but still – it’s good to be nice sometimes.

Besides, it’s just plain cool to show off an awesome badge to others – even if it is only for the excellent comprehension of a Xerox machine.

Why Every Business Should Be Interested in Gamification

1. Experience Experience And Oh Look at That, More Experience

Everything a player does in a game, or at least in an RPG style game, earns them experience. This experience then goes to further their progress meter and ultimately acts as a support system for earning additional achievements, rewards or badges.

This same thing can be said for the professional world; everything an employee does earns them important experience – unfortunately this experience can’t be visually displayed nor can it be properly assessed by others.

The experience and progress meters are the bread and butter of a gamification system because they’re basically what helps to drive the entire environment. In a game, if a player isn’t earning the proper experience or reward for the task they are completing, then there’s no reason to be doing it. The same holds true for a professional environment, why would employees complete projects for which they receive no credit for?

A proper gamification system individually rewards employees experience for the tasks and projects they are completing, which in turn can be used to display how successful the employee is in their work environment.

The beauty of gamification systems in business is that experience can be customized to fit the work environment. Employees can earn experience for a number of tasks and in a numerous amount of ways. The best part about a gamification system is the fact that employees can be rewarded for their progress and can be actively recognized for their work. No one wants to be invisible at work, especially if they’re working their tail feather off.

Get Gamified, Now

So there you have it, we’ve delivered a very progressive way of looking at the implementation of a gamification system in business environments.

There are many benefits to using gamification. We just gave you ten of the biggest benefits. If you’re interested in finding out more about gamification in IT environments, please read our previously authored article (we’ve provided the link for you, because we’re cool like that).

Otherwise, go get gamified now.