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We're all aware of a certain type of employee. They're the competitive and highly driven individuals, typically in the sales function. Their desire is to succeed and get to “the kill” as quickly as possible with as many people watching as possible.
People often create motivational techniques focusing just on this type of individual. They tend to think of items like leaderboards and prizes as focused solely on one person, rather than realizing the importance of collaboration and team work in an office environment. But there is a lot more to successful gamification than purely appealing to this one behavioral profile.
Humans by their very nature are a social species. In a world filled with threats, people prosper and thrive through working together. This is supported by the fact that, on average, 80% of the workforce is motivated by sociable activities. This makes the team ethic a critical part of implementing game mechanics.
To ensure that people are working to the best of their ability, a successful game mechanics program must focus on fostering collaboration between teams and giving "the socializers" the right conditions under which they can thrive.
On one hand, a group called "the socializers" seems counter-productive. When thinking about the word, it immediately has connotations of aimless conversing. The fact is that this group is far from negative. Socializers are keen to work together and achieve things as a team, something that can deliver not only great benefits in a business sense, but can also foster a positive working environment.
To use game mechanics in this instance, a company has to focus on team rewards. Teams can be pitted against each other in terms of performance with rewards given to the most successful departments, such as a meal out or recognition in front of the rest of the company. These points should be accrued over time and the team or individual should have the ability to go up several levels, driving engagement.
Another way of motivating socializers is to use targeted competitions. These should be focused on supporting and developing a set of behaviors that are beneficial for the business. The positive aspect of these is that you can run several at the same time, helping develop different aspects of behavior. Integrating applications such as Chatter will allow team members to collaborate with ease and drive that social interaction that is so important to many of us in the workplace.
Gartner has stated that 80% of gamification deployments will ultimately fail, so what is the differentiator that separates the 20% that are successful? Purely focusing on the competitive element of game mechanics will not be enough to embed improvements in business performance and employee behavior, so the integration of social platforms can and will make that difference.
By modeling tools on social media sites that employees socialize through during their free time, workers will feel less like they are obliged to complete reports and view it more as a natural activity that seamlessly merges into the working day. For this kind of system to be effective, businesses must look to convert staff from mere adoption to addiction.
Collaboration is one of the most powerful tools an organization has. The difficulty is creating a cohesive and polished environment in which individuals can flourish in a team environment. To achieve this, game mechanics must be used to foster positive behavioral patterns and reward people for working together effectively to overcome problems. With the majority of the workforce responding positively to collaborative and social factors, the group competition element of game mechanics must be afforded greater importance. You wouldn’t ignore the majority in any other line of work, so why do it here?
About the author
Peter Grant is an ex-UK MD of salesforce.com where he led the team to a 400% growth in revenue. Grant later ran worldwide sales for Tideway, creating a 500% increase in customer acquisition that led to their acquisition by BMC. Grant is now leading the team at CloudApps and is passionate about motivating CRM best practice and boosting business performance through the use of game mechanics.
Read this salesforce.com e-book to learn the five ways you can better motivate your sales reps.
