Gamification seems to be the hot trend of the 2010s. Mobile apps allow people to gamify everything from weight loss to budget balancing. Can this trend be transferred to manufacturing? Can you impart training tips to your employees through gamification techniques? It may sound radical, but gamification is so popular for a reason.
What Is Gamification?
Gamification refers to the practice of turning the achievement of a particular goal into a game, with set targets to reach and positive feedback “rewards” for reaching them. These rewards can include special unlocked icons, achievement notifications or points that you can use to gauge your results against others or yourself.
At some point, enterprising app creators realized that people are addicted to the video game pattern of solving puzzles to reach goals and receiving positive feedback and acknowledgment of their achievements. They thought to use that to help people achieve important real-life goals.
How Can Gamification Help You Train Your Employees?
There are now companies that sell e-Learning gamification software you can use to teach anyone just about anything. If you are trying to train your employees or improve their performance in manufacturing jobs, you can tailor a gamification program to help. This can have numerous benefits, including:
- Team Building – Part of the fun of playing games is seeing how you will do against your friends. By introducing some friendly competition into the workplace, you can help team members bond while giving them the opportunity to inspire each other to perform better at the same time.
- Increased Engagement – The most appealing thing about gamification is that it’s fun. It’s common knowledge that people learn better if they are more engaged and interested in what they are learning. A rote lesson given by a consultant to a room full of tired staff members is much less likely to stick than lessons learned through attempting to earn game achievements. If you’ve ever seen people glued to their phones playing games, then you’ve seen just how well this effect works.
- Morale Building – Too many of us probably lament that we do not have too many opportunities to be entertained at work. By turning training into a game, you can improve the mood and the morale of your workers, which in most cases inevitably leads to greater productivity.
- Cost Savings – Once you’ve paid for the gamification software, training through digital games should cost you very little. Most of the “rewards” your employees are trying to earn are in-game, digital rewards that have no physical monetary value, although ideally, they will feel valuable to your employees. You can offer real-world incentives for strong game performance if you want to, but you may be surprised at how rarely you have to.
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