5 Key Benefits That Gamification Brings To Your Business

Gamification is no longer just a buzzword. It has found some real and interesting applications in the domains of learning, marketing, personality development, data analytics and so on. The right implementation of this concept can generate powerful results and do wonders for your business.

Here are the 5 key benefits that Gamification will bring to your business.

1. Making the mundane interesting

The game-based interactive elements add thrill and fun to the otherwise mundane processes. Whether the task is about conducting a survey or employee training, gamification makes the process more interesting as the knowledge is supplied non-intrusively, thereby yielding better results.

2. Sustainability

Using Gamification in your company is a strategy for sustainability. The games are re-playable and are built using real-life scenarios. They can be played again and again for performance improvement without incurring additional costs on the company.

3. Real-time analytics

A gamified campaign will allow you to target particular user groups of your interest and get real-time feedback. You can analyze the user behavior and draw inferences. Such feedback is a powerful contributor in designing your business’ future strategies.

4. Self-motivated work force

These games are built with features like leaderboard, award system, etc that reward the employees on their accomplishments. This keeps each employee self-motivated and self-aware about his/her performance.

5. High productivity and ROI

These games can be customized to align with your business objectives. Gamification’s unique features directly link the company’s objectives to the employee performance, thereby increasing the overall productivity. Any initial investment made to include game-based learning in your business is easily replenished along with a high ROI.

I guess that’s all! If you think of any more, please share with me!

Gamification in the Corporate Sector (Part 2)

This is the second and the last article from the series ‘Gamification in the Corporate Sector’. In case, you haven’t checked out the first one, here it is.

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4 Reasons To Use A Simulation In Your Elearning Course

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7 E-learning Design Mistakes To Avoid

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When To Use Visuals in Learning Content

8 Reasons To Use Serious Games For Training

1. Highly Engaging
Serious games are very engaging and communicate in a fashion that is easily acceptable by the human mind. Use of elements like story, interesting characters, relevant settings, etc engage the user emotionally.

2. Safe Environment
Users learn to deal with real life-like situations in a safe and engaging environment. They can make mistakes and keep on practicing till they are well-trained, which in turn boosts their confidence.

3. Instructional Design Based
Serious games are always designed after conducting an instructional design study (the study of creating instructional experiences which make knowledge acquisition more efficient and effective). It foresees and tackles the possible roadblocks that might hinder the learning process.

4. Reusable & Cost-effective
Once designed, Serious Games can be used multiple times. You don’t need a facilitator or special sessions to use this. The cost for maintenance and updating a serious game is negligible given its extensive uses.

5. Easy to Understand
Serious games are great when it comes to delivering complicated knowledge. These games communicate complex pieces of information in a fun and engaging way.

6. Reporting & Analytics
Serious games allow you to capture the users’ data. This is one of the main advantages they have over offline or classroom training. These reports can be used later for optimising the training content.

7. Acts as a Booster
These games can boost any learning methodology i.e. These games provide a welcome break in between modules or learning schedules and engage the user by means of its gameplay.

8. Tried & Tested
Serious games ARE effective! Several Research Studies have acknowledged the fact that serious games do add on to the overall learning experience. These games have been used in different sectors like defense, retail, insurance, etc and have been found useful.

Why Employees Love Online Training

I guess this infographic says it all!

Do you feel there’s anything else? Do let me know!

A Day in the Life of a Serious Game Developer

If you are in the serious gaming industry, then probably, you would be familiar with this conversation.

(The conversation starts with me saying that I work with a serious gaming company)

The Other Guy: So, you develop games like Angry Birds? Which one have you developed?

Me (Exasperated already): No! We develop serious games. Not the fancy ones like Angry Birds or Candy Crush.

The Other Guy: Serious Games? What is it?

Me: These are games which are developed for purpose other than entertainment. These are games for training, research or marketing. In other words, these games are not just for fun, but for solving real world problems.

The Other Guy: Real world problems? Oh! Never heard about them. Seems like a new concept.

Me: Many think so, but it’s not. It’s been used since the 19^th century, mostly for military or defence purpose. You know, Prussian forces used to have one called ‘Kriegsspiel‘. But the buzz around serious games began once the digital scenario started booming. The term ‘Serious Game‘ was coined in 2001 and then it was adopted increasingly by different industries.

The Other Guy: Whoa! I had no clue. By the way, do these games work? I mean, after all these are just games!

Me: Well, you are right! These are just games. Only, they have a serious purpose. Serious games use entertainment and engagement to convey serious and strategic information or achieve communication objectives.

The Other Guy: I am not sure I understand it.

Me: Alright! So tell me, why is a game fun?

The Other Guy: Because … it is a fun activity which you play and try to win.

Me: There you go, my friend! In any game, you play to win. You make decisions or plan moves in order to win. Serious games work in a similar fashion, except, it delivers some kind of learning using the same mechanism. Amusement is secondary here, and yet it is the secret ingredient that makes serious games work. That’s the reason why we use games to teach our kids. Don’t you think? It makes boring stuff interesting!

The Other Guy: You have a point! Can you name any of these games?

Me: Yes, there are many out there! There’s this puzzle game called ‘Foldit’ which explains how protein folding happens in a human body. Even games like ‘Need for Speed’ can be termed as ‘Serious Games’ …

The Other Guy (Not letting me complete my sentence): Need for Speed? What does one learn from it? I have been playing that one for years!

Me (Now Frustrated): While playing the game, have you noticed advertisements for Porsche or any other racing cars?

The Other Guy: Yes! They’re always there!

Me: That’s the purpose. Need for Speed is an Advergame, a version of serious games, that is used for advertising brands. There are many out there! Even Movies come up with games for promotional purpose. Iron Man has done it. The Harry Potter game was a rage when it was released few years back.

The Other Guy: I remember that one!

This is how it starts and continues … But in most cases, at this point, either I am bored to continue or the other guy is!

So, have you ever had a conversation like this?

7 Tips to Integrate Games into Your eLearning Course

Everyone loves to play! What if I tell you, that you can use games to teach complicated subjects like Compliance Training or processes like Account opening? Yes, these games for training or serious games, do create an engaging learning experience.

Let’s find out how you can integrate these serious games into your elearning courses.

1. Set learning objectives

Yes! Games are for fun! But everyone plays to win! Set your learning objectives beforehand to make sure your game stays in tune with the content.

2. Communicate desired outcomes

Inform the learners what they will gain from playing this game. This will motivate them to participate actively in it.

3. Tell little, engage more

Do not give out all the details. Communicate what is required. Don’t reveal all the suspense. This will keep the learners engaged as well as won’t take out all the fun!

4. Create opportunity for application

eLearning allows one to learn in a safe environment. Create situations such that learned concepts can be applied. This will help in retention and create a favourable learning experience.

5. Keep it real and relevant

Keep all the descriptions and details like measurements, tools, techniques, spaces, etc., accurate. Virtual practice reduces room for real life mistakes.

6. Value content over gaming

Games make eLearning very interesting, no doubt there! And yet, if they distract your learner from the learning content, then it will fail your learning initiatives.

7. Get regular feedback

Feedback is the best way to know how well the game or module is. A quick quiz works best!

Why Companies Should Train their Employees

There are 3 aspects of an individual that needs to be worked on to make them suitable employees – Attitude, Skills and Knowledge.

Attitude training determines the behavioral characteristics that the employee needs to show. This differs more from role to role rather than industry to industry. Salespersons have to be hungry and persuasive. Operations teams need to be resourceful and detail-focused and senior management needs to perform as able leaders. Attitude training is best done through exposure activities, coaching and workshops, in that descending order of effectiveness.

Skills training allows the employee to perform his activities better. This typically is a combination of industry and role. While workshops and on-the-job training are the dominant modes for skills training, they are expensive both in terms of logistics and the error costs. In recent times, simulations and serious games have started finding favor on account of the spaced repetition and exploration aspects that they offer for skills training.

Knowledge training is company and function-specific for the employee. Products, policies and functional knowledge are the typical types of training that come under this bucket. This is best done over an e-learning platform due to the sheer size of content that often forms the base of the training. E-learning allows for self-paced self-selected learning which reduces the time overhead that typically is involved in such volume training. Assessments become an important part of ensuring that knowledge training has been adequately absorbed.