Ashley's Edition of Gamification in the Workplace

Heidi is searching for a way to make the work environment more engaging, and as such is studying gamification in the workplace. Her idea is to incorporate video game-esque tactics and software into companies to motivate and excite employees. I know my current job as a secretary (a desk job) often bores me and it's only four hours a day and I get to move around/have new encounters (for the most part) every day. I cannot imagine sitting in a cubicle for eight hours every day, continuously entering the same information into a software program. Thus, I highly support Heidi's cause and have done a little research on it.

I began with a simple Google search of random phrases like "how to make the workplace more exciting," "company software that acts like a video game," etc. and I either got too many results or not related results. Surprisingly, or not, when I entered "gamification in the workplace," I got the results I was looking for.

This first article, "Adam Penenberg: How Gamification is Going to Change the Workplace" is extremely helpful! I was so surprised to see that companies like Microsoft, IBM, Canon and L'oreal use "gaming" as tools in their research, recruiting and repairs. 

I looked up Adam Penenbeg's book Play at Work: How Games Inspire Breakthrough Thinking and was surprised to see only one Amazon customer review. And it's by a friend/colleague! So, this tells me that the topic is still very new and unexplored.

This presentation by Carnegie Mellon University's Professor Jesse Schell is referenced in the Forbes article and is about the world of game development, even projecting games into future workplaces.

At the bottom of my first article, there were several search suggestions and oen of them was "Safety and Training Games". This got me thinking about whether we need to take baby steps into introducing gaming into the work industry. Several companies use games for recruiting and training and that's a great start. I know a lot of companies do team-building activities and maybe gaming could be included. This also raises an important point-what about the people who don't like gaming? Ultimately, companies will have to have several versions of software to appeal to all their employees. 

Another angle to explore is the benefit of video games! In this DataBeat article, they found that, "The study found that trainees who used video games to train had a nine percent higher retention rate, an 11 percent higher factual knowledge level and a 14 percent higher skill-based knowledge level, according to an announcement today by the game industry trade group, theEntertainment Software Association". Heidi can also use statistics about gaming, in general, to emphasize longer attention spans, more agile fingers, better focus...etc. Because there is not a lot of specific research on gaming in the workplace, she will probably have to juxtapose data found in other studies like low motivation in the workplace or the rise of boredom and job dissatisfaction in data entry jobs. 

It is an awesome and apparently beneficial idea that I think many hip companies like Google and Amazon would be quick to adopt.