Introduction

Every organization wants to adopt corporate training techniques that aids in capturing the attention of the employee and enhances their creative thinking. The key is to engage the employees in such a way that the learning imparted during the training can be retained by them once they are in the work environment. There are quite a few training techniques that can be used to accomplish this objective, but none is more effective than the use of gamification in the corporate training setting.

Gamification is a technique which employs game elements and mechanics in a non-game setting like corporate training. It has been observed that when these game based activities are collated with training programs it results in more employee engagement and the more engaged the learner is with the material the better they learn.

What Makes Gamification so Effective?

This reason can be explained with the psychological aspect of the way people get motivated to learn. It all starts with the brain getting wired to respond positively to rewards. When a person successfully completes an activity and receives a reward, the brain releases endorphins, which make them feel good and ensures that they complete the learning to get further learning.

The Success Mantra for Building a Game Based Corporate Training Approach

The key to the success of game based corporate training approach is to build a training program that rewards employees for learning. Apart from this, it is also important to include the following things.

1. Provide timely and immediate feedback during the training;
2. Offer rewards to the employees after the success of each small hurdle that they pass during the training;
3. Include an atmosphere of competition by making the employees know where they stand in relation to their peers to encourage top performance during the training.

Practical application of gamification in corporate workplace

There are quite a few organizations that have started to build gamification applications and programs which have been transformed into a $100 million industry all of a sudden. According to a research conducted by P & S Market Research, “The global gamification market size was $960.5 million in 2014 and it is expected to reach $22,913.0 million by 2022, at a CAGR of 41.8%.”

Microsoft’s Director of Test and Creator of Communicate Hope, Ross Smith developed a game to eliminate the boring task of testing phase of the product thereby making it more interesting and creative. During the training period, a game of competition amongst employees was used to significantly increase the quality of user feedback and bug identification. This was done with a game based program which tied Leaderboards to charities. After the successful completion of the game by the employees, the user feedback quality and bug recognitions were sixteen times more than the ones who were not part of the game-based training.

Benefits of Gamification in Corporate Training

With the help of game based training approach, organizations try to utilize new and effective ways to enhance the learning process of the employees. Given below are some other benefits.

1. Easy assessment of employee performance

It is very easy to assess the learning received by each employee through game-based training. Certain techniques like quiz tests and analytical questions on the slides are used to determine the level of understanding of the employees during the training session. This makes the employees to make strategic choices based on simulated situations that are connected to the work environment. Through this approach, it becomes easy to make the learning process easier and more engaging for the employees.

2. A compelling way to educate the employees

Designing Digitally, an award winning solutions provider of game-based learning experiences for large businesses uses game-based learning methods that enables trainers to adopt fundamental theories and concepts while teaching the employees in a compelling way that is easy to understand. With these games, employees need to apply the concepts in a simulated environment that replicates the actual work settings for that particular job. The theories and concepts introduced during the games assist the employees to comprehend the application of these concepts in work environment, making it easier for them to practically learn about the process.

3. The ideas learned during the game based training can be easily remembered and implemented in the workplace

While traditional training methods make the entire session boring and easy to forget, game based training approach can easily be remembered and implemented in the workplace. The assessment of the employees after the training session are usually high, resulting in added ideas that can be remembered to perform better with better practical knowledge on the job with confidence and self-fulfillment. It also enables the employees to evaluate their performance during the educative gameplay.

4. The application of corporate training gamification can be applied in diverse industries

This practical game based training can be implemented in different industries. Furthermore, these games can be played multiple times without getting bored due to the very fact that there is always an incentive to achieve a higher score every time during the gameplay. It includes attributes like engineering, salesmanship and technical knowledge, making it suitable for different types of industries.

5. Supports soft skills learning

Game-based training approach assists in developing intuitive and emotional potential of the employee that is quite important in the corporate world. Soft skills cannot be learned with theory or books, nor with the technical knowledge, rather they need to be taught with the help of practical ways like game based training. With the help of this type of training, each and every employee, irrespective whether he/she is the manager, supervisor or director will learn the art of dealing with people that will aid them in communicating with other employees during the actual work environment.

Conclusion

With the help of gamification, you can easily simulate the difficult real-life work situations that can be faced by the employee and make them deal with it in virtual game-based situations. The experiences encountered by the participating employees in the game based training approach will help them to get the answers to the problems that they are likely to face in the work environment in the near future. This gives them an opportunity to try out different scenarios and utilize the best solution in the real life work environment, making them efficient and more productive in the end.

Note:-This article was originally published on cFIRSTCORP