Gamification of Employee Training and Development

Gamification of personnel is not a substitute for work or self-indulgence. Properly built gamification of business processes benefits the company, from motivating employees to do work to achieving global goals and increasing the company’s cash income. Armstrong and Landers (2018) define gamification and explain its role in improving employees’ productivity. Moreover, the article proposes a gradual restructuring process for gamifying training.

The authors start with sharing different approaches to the integration of gamification. Thus, a training structure might incorporate entertaining content or a gamified method. The former one may include a narrative genre of writing or communicating a piece of knowledge in contrast to a pure description. A gamified method is supposed to contain an interactive element such as quizzes or a feedback mechanism. Armstrong and Landers (2018) argue that either approach in isolation should be considered carefully since the risk of transforming the primary meaning of the content arises.

Moreover, the authors state that regardless of the negative connotation of badges and leaderboards as motivating and gamifying instruments, they actually can effectively deal with work productivity and learning. Beyond this, game elements like immersion or challenge also have a great potential of engaging employees. An essential condition to make such tools work is to establish a specific feasible yet challenging goal for learners to boost their motivation.

Furthermore, the paper provides a guideline for an effective organization of gamified training. The authors propose to use instructional system design when approaching the structuring of a presentation or learning process. The system comprises several essential steps: “conduct a needs assessment, use theory to develop an initial training design, implement the training and conduct a training evaluation, redesigning and re-evaluating as necessary” (Armstrong and Landers, 2018, p.5). According to the authors, the most efficiency is achieved when this approach is followed. In addition, the article warns that gamification should be carefully designed and integrated without ignoring effectiveness and learning outcomes assessment.

Reference

Armstrong, M. B., & Landers, R. N. (2018). Gamification of employee training and development. International Journal of Training and Development, 22(2), 162–169. Web.