Gamification in the Workplace: Examples, Benefits, and Training Ideas

Gamification in the workplace uses game-like elements, such as points, badges, leaderboards, quizzes, and progress tracking, to make employee training more engaging. When linked to clear learning objectives, it can improve participation, motivation, knowledge retention, and training completion.

What Is Gamification in the Workplace?

Gamification is a term used to describe when gaming elements are used in education and other non-gaming situations to help make learning easier and more enjoyable, and to build engagement and motivation for a person to continue learning.

In education and learning, gamification can work well because it draws on human behavior and our need to feel rewarded, to compete, and to be able to see progress as we learn.

Gaming elements such as receiving a badge, points, being put on top of a leaderboard, reaching another level, passing a quiz, or seeing a progress bar are all examples of elements that can be included for gamification in training design.

What Are the Benefits of Gamification in Corporate Training?

There are 5 key benefits to be gained from including gamification in corporate training, and these are as follows:

1. More Employees Complete the Training

Employees tend to be more motivated when gamification is used in training, as opposed to traditional training, and this results in more employees completing the training.

2. Increased Employee Motivation

Many employees find that training and learning that feels more like a game is much easier to be motivated to do and continue doing.

Through badges, progress bars, recognition, and feedback, gamification can make corporate training more enjoyable and encourage employees to continue learning.

3. Improved Performance

Gamified training can use simulations and scenario-based learning to mirror real-world situations, helping employees practice decisions and improve performance.

4. Collaborative Learning

Gamification makes collaborative and social learning more practical, such as through team-based games and training. Collaborative learning not only aids team building but can also make learning more interesting.

5. Cost-Effective

When delivered through a digital app, online learning platform, or learning management system (LMS), gamified programs can be a relatively cost-effective way to train large numbers of employees once they have been designed.

How Does Gamification Compare With Traditional Workplace Training?

How does gamification in the workplace differ from traditional training?

1. Employee Engagement and Motivation

One of the most obvious differences is the way in which gamification helps make employee training more fun, memorable, and enjoyable.

Rather than feeling like a long, boring session in the classroom or training room, when learning feels like a fun activity, we often find that time goes by much faster and that we enjoy the training more.

Indeed, gamification can use competition, collaboration, recognition, and feedback to encourage participation.

Traditional teaching would be more about attending a workshop or class and then completing an assignment on time, without the level of interactivity and competition that gamification offers.

2. Interactivity

When gamification is used, learners actively participate through quizzes, simulations, scenarios, and challenges that require decision-making and problem-solving. The learning is very much an interactive experience.

With traditional training, the learner would experience a far more one-dimensional approach, i.e., with limited interactivity and instead an experience where learners are expected to absorb information passively.

Interaction will often be limited to occasional quizzes or tests. A great example of this is watching a video or attending a lecture without real-time interactive feedback.

3. Instant Feedback

Another powerful aspect of using gamification in the workplace for training is that it helps to provide employees with instant, real-time feedback on their progress.

Progress bars, badges, quiz scores, and other indicators give learners timely feedback on their progress; well-designed feedback loops can also help reinforce learning and improvement.

With a test at the end of every small module, users can, for example, instantly see how well they are doing.

With traditional training, this feedback can often be very limited during the training and limited to feedback at the end of the training, such as through a test or exam of some sort, making the training potentially less engaging.

4. Personalization

Personalization is one further powerful benefit provided when using gamification in corporate training.

The specific learner’s progress is often tracked, and this means that the employee in question can continue to learn at their own pace and at the right level (although for compliance training, there might be a set time and set level that needs to be achieved).

In respect of traditional training, there often tends to be a one-size-fits-all approach to training employees, with a set timeline, regardless of their individual needs or progress.

This approach might, for example, involve all employees sitting in the same training session, even if some are already proficient in the subject matter.

5. Collaboration and Social Interaction

The benefits of gamification for employee engagement are powerful, with collaboration more easily possible through team challenges, multi-person learning, and via social features such as peer-to-peer discussions.

Gamification in corporate training, in other words, benefits us as learners from this greater sense of community and opportunities for social learning.

6. Fun Factor

Any way in which we can make corporate training more fun and enjoyable has to be a plus, and gamification certainly makes this easier to achieve.

When learning feels more like an enjoyable game, it is far more likely to be embraced as opposed to old-style training, whereby the learning is more formal and often seen as tedious.

What Are Examples of Gamification in the Workplace?

Gamification can be used in many ways, so let me give you some examples of gamification in the workplace.

1. Sales Training

Salespeople need ongoing motivation, and gamification can work especially well in this type of sector.

While it does not work for every salesperson, using gamification, such as via leaderboards, and offering performance-based rewards, can help provide extra engagement and aid in driving higher sales.

2. Customer Service Training

Several companies have used gamified e-learning to train employees in customer service skills through simulated interactions.

Offering staff the opportunity to role-play real-world customer service scenarios has proven to be highly effective for these companies.

3. Compliance Training

Gamified learning can be particularly useful for compliance training, where employees may need to complete and retain essential information.

Offering microlearning through bite-sized modules can make essential compliance training more flexible and easier to complete within employees’ schedules.

4. Onboarding New Employees

Induction training does not have to be laborious and can be made enjoyable for new employees; hence, gamification can play a useful role.

Through challenges, quizzes, and rewards, getting new employees to learn about the company culture, company policies, and other general information can be made a little more interesting than it might otherwise be.

5. Engaging Employees Who Work Online Remotely

Gamification can be a particularly handy tool when managing employees who work online remotely, whether as part of hybrid working or if they work fully online, i.e., WFH or WFA.

Training that utilizes gamification elements can help these employees stay engaged, connected, and motivated across different work environments.

Online employees can sometimes feel disconnected from the rest of their team when working remotely.

Gamification, though, has helped to bridge part of the disconnect by providing the tools for social learning and collaboration.

No matter where in the world someone might be working geographically, game elements such as points scoring, badges, and leaderboards provide a way for employees to be motivated and to participate.

Gamification examples for remote employees include offering them the chance to earn points for completing training modules and seeing their progress on a shared leaderboard, encouraging continuous engagement no matter where they work.

What Are the Challenges of Gamification in Workplace Training?

As with any form of technology, while there are many benefits, there are also a few disadvantages. These include:

Over-Gamification

It can be so tempting as a software or training designer to over-gamify content. Overdo it, and the things you are trying to teach might get lost in the gaming elements, and key lessons might be missed.

Misalignment with Business Goals

As touched on above, to get gamification right when designing it for workplace training, it is essential to correctly align the gaming elements with actual job functions or goals.

Using gamification, in other words, can be costly initially because of the need to carefully plan and develop the training.

Loss of Motivation

From personal experience, I can say that it can be quite a turn-off and demotivating when too many gimmicky graphics start floating around on-screen when you are attempting to do training.

Well-designed gamification is an art form and needs to be carefully planned.

How Can You Use Gamification Effectively in Workplace Training?

So, further considerations if you are interested in gamification in the workplace are as follows:

• Set Clear Learning Objectives: Ensure the game mechanics align with learning outcomes (e.g., knowledge acquisition, skill-building, behavior change).
• Keep It Simple: Focus on intuitive and easy-to-understand game elements to prevent frustration.
• Incorporate Rewards: Offer meaningful incentives such as points, badges, or real-world rewards to motivate employees.
• Use Realistic Scenarios: Gamification should mimic real-world situations to help employees apply learning in a practical context.
• Measure Progress: Providing a progress bar or some other performance and progress-related measure can help users.

The Future of Gamification in Corporate Training

There is little doubt that gamification is here to stay and will continue to grow in its use in corporate training and for workplace training. The four ways in which I see it developing the most are as follows:

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI will continue to play a larger role as machine learning helps personalize workplace learning. Very targeted learning will be a key part of employee learning in the future (i.e., far more than it presently is).

2. Virtual Reality (VR) & Augmented Reality (AR)

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) can be especially useful for role-play, customer-service scenarios, and practicing workplace tasks.

Expect the use of immersive technologies to grow quickly as they are used to create real-world simulations for frontline staff training.

3. Social Gamification

Knowledge of social learning is growing, and with this understanding of peer learning, team-based learning will continue through the use of gamification on digital learning platforms.

4. Microlearning and Gamification Integration

The idea of time management and how we use the gaps, such as when commuting to get tasks done, benefits companies that can use microlearning by providing bite-sized increments to train employees.

For more practical approaches to improving learning engagement, see our guide to corporate training strategies.