Gamification

Gamification: a definition

Gamification (التلعيب) is the use of elements drawn from games, such as points, levels, challenges and leaderboards, in a context that is not a game, with the aim of encouraging a particular behaviour.

The elements are borrowed from games, but the setting into which they are placed is not a game. In human resources that setting is work: training, a new hire’s first steps, safety and compliance programmes, and recognition between colleagues. The aim is part of the definition: a particular behaviour that the organisation wants to encourage. Points, levels, challenges and leaderboards are the means, and the behaviour is the end they serve. The four elements are named as examples, so the definition is not confined to them.

Where gamification is used in HR

Gamification can appear in four areas of human resources work:

• Training. A training programme can be laid out as a path with levels, with a badge marking completion, inside a learning management system. The levels show how far the employee has advanced along the path, and the badge records that the employee has completed it.
• Onboarding. In employee onboarding, the list of first steps a new hire takes can be turned into a path on which progress is visible. Rather than working through a list of separate items, the new hire can see how much of the path has been covered and how much of it remains.
• Safety and compliance. Gamification can be used in safety and compliance programmes, where the behaviour required is repeated and can be measured. The behaviour recurs, so there are repeated occasions on which it can be encouraged, and it can be measured, which is part of the condition on which gamification succeeds.
• Recognition between colleagues. Employees give one another points as a way of saying thank you. The points pass from one colleague to another, so the recognition comes from the people the employee works alongside.

The condition on which gamification succeeds

Gamification works when the behaviour required is specific, measurable and worth doing in itself, but needs a push to get started.

A specific behaviour is one that can be named, such as completing a level of a training path or finishing one of the first steps of onboarding. A measurable behaviour is one whose occurrence can be counted, so that a point, a level or a badge can be attached to it. A behaviour worth doing in itself is one the employee would see value in without any points at all. The push that gamification gives is to the start of that behaviour, not to its value, which the behaviour already has.

When the work itself has no meaning for the employee, the position is different. Adding points to that work does not create motivation. What it does instead is move the employee’s attention to the point itself.

The difference between the two positions turns on the third quality. Where the behaviour is worth doing in itself, the points help it begin. Where the work has no meaning for the employee, the points do not give it one; they become the thing the employee attends to, in place of the work they were attached to.

Counterproductive patterns in gamification design

Three patterns can appear when gamification is designed without care:

• Optimising the indicator, not the work. If the points are awarded on the number of calls, more calls can be made and each one can become shorter. The points reward the count, so the count can rise while the length of each call, which the points do not measure, falls. The indicator that carries the points can improve while the work it stands for does not.
• A leaderboard that serves those at the top. An employee who sees themselves outside the top places every time is given no reason by the board to keep going. That can confine the board’s effect to the employees who were ahead to begin with. Those who lead the ranking have a reason to hold their places, but those who stay outside the top places are given none.
• Displacing intrinsic motivation. Tying a behaviour that was carried out from conviction to a symbolic reward may make the behaviour’s continuing depend on the reward’s continuing. Before the reward, the employee acted because they were convinced the behaviour was right. Once the reward is attached, the behaviour can become linked to it, so that when the reward stops, the behaviour may stop as well.

What makes gamification acceptable

Four conditions make gamification acceptable:

• Participation is optional. It is left to the employee to decide whether to take part, and an employee who chooses not to is not required to.
• Comparison is with the person’s own past performance, not with colleagues. It measures progress against where the employee stood before, rather than against where the people around them stand.
• The reward is for completing a behaviour, not for outdoing others. It goes to the employee who completes the behaviour, whatever the results of other employees.
• The results stay out of performance appraisal unless that has been announced in advance. Employees are told whether their points, levels or places on a leaderboard will count in their appraisal, and these count only if that has been announced beforehand.

The governing rule is that gamification is a tool of encouragement. Turning it into a tool of monitoring can bring its effect to a quick end. The rule separates two uses of the same elements: points and rankings used to encourage a behaviour, and points and rankings used to monitor the people taking part.

The limit of gamification

Gamification does not address a structural cause. Three examples of such a cause are an unbearable workload, a tool that does not work, and a lack of clarity about who is responsible for what. Each lies in the way the work is set up, and points, levels or badges placed on top of the work leave it where it was.

Adding gamification on top of a problem of this kind can be taken as making light of the problem. It can then make matters worse instead of easing them.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.