Force staff to rote-learn facts and figures, and research shows 87 per cent of it is forgotten within 30 days. “Introduce ‘gamification’ techniques and you instantly increase ROI because you make learning fun, and something people want to do,” says Gabe Zichermann, author of The Gamification Revolution. But, don’t, he warns, assume tasks have to resemble Xbox games: “The basics of learning need to apply to gamification.
Poor learning turned into a game is still poor learning. You still need to make it meaningful as well as enjoyable, and persuade people to take part in it.” Zichermann recommends following the three Fs: feedback, friends and fun. “The best gamification lets people know how they’re doing – through rewards, points, scores, progress bars. ‘Friends’ means a social aspect, to promote competition and collaboration. ‘Fun’ means just that – make learning enjoyable.” Ruth Stuart, CIPD research adviser, L&D, says: “It’s easy to jump on the bandwagon: think why you need gamification.
Work out what makes games fun, rather than thinking about graphics, and keep them short – 10 mins max.” Different elements of gamification suit the cultures of different companies, so zone in on these. When Deloitte – which celebrates having a competitive culture – used badges and points to recognise learning, it raised the amount of training employees undertook by 40 per cent in a year.
For those without big budgets, Zichermann says gamification can simply be the process of making your learning management system more feedback-driven. And it doesn’t have to be online only. When EON introduced auto-enrolment last year it added gamification to the education process, including scratchcard games staff played to find out how much pension they could “win” by revealing different contribution levels. Ant Donaldson, senior HR specialist at EON, says: “We had a complex online quiz, but the gaming element made it compelling enough for people to do the whole thing, and it got more than 2,700 plays. Best of all, 81 per cent of staff found the learning clear, and understood the value of retirement saving.”