Gamification in personnel development
Friedrich Schiller already knew: "Man is only fully human where he plays." Play is essential for people and the development of their skills. According to gamification expert Roman Rackwitz, playing means above all "letting yourself glide and immersing yourself in an environment."
The principle of gamification attempts to make this usable for contexts outside the classic game. Playing and learning belong together by nature. Through play, the brain learns to understand the world, process experiences and acquire mental and motor skills.
You can also use this natural learning mechanism in your company - through the strategic use of gamification. Find out here what gamification is all about and how you can use it to increase the motivation to learn in your organization.
What is gamification?
Gamification refers to the integration of typical game elements and principles into non-game contexts. This definition comes from Sebastian Deterding and his research team, who put the term into a scientific context in 2011. The British games researcher Richard Bartle coined the term back in 1978, but gamification has only received greater attention in research and practice since the 2010s.
The core principle is simple: elements from games are transferred to real working and learning processes. These are, for example, challenges that need to be solved at different levels. Progress indicators or points earned then show users how they are performing. In this way, real processes are designed in such a way that they promote intrinsic motivation in people. Gamification takes advantage of the fact that people naturally enjoy overcoming challenges, making progress and celebrating success.
Theoretical foundations
Gamification is based on proven psychological theories:
Self-determination theory according to Deci & Ryan
This theory identifies three basic human needs: Autonomy (self-determination), competence (sense of efficacy) and social connectedness (belonging). Gamification can address all three needs.
Flow theory according to Csikszentmihalyi
Flow describes the state of complete concentration and intrinsic motivation. It arises when challenge and ability are optimally matched - a state that good games create perfectly.
Behaviorist learning theories
These explain how rewards and reinforcement influence behavior. Gamification uses these mechanisms through points, badges and other reward systems.
Differentiation from other methods
Gamification differs from related approaches:
- Game-based learning: Here, learning content is inserted into a game context. Players acquire knowledge or skills while playing without the learning aspect necessarily being in the foreground. Gamification, on the other hand, inserts typical game elements into a non-game context without focusing on learning content.
- Serious games: These are stand-alone games with an educational goal, such as flight simulators for pilots. They offer a complex, often realistic experience that has been specially developed for learning purposes. In comparison, gamified applications are less complex and cost-intensive.
- Simulation: Simulations recreate real-life situations and make it possible to gain experience in a controlled environment. Gamification can complement simulations, but is not dependent on them. It uses playful elements to promote motivation and commitment.
- Nudging: Nudging subtly influences decisions by changing the decision-making environment without a direct prompt. Example: A sign in the hotel room reads "9 out of 10 guests use their towel more than once". A form of nudging to draw attention to socially desirable behavior without a direct prompt. Gamification, on the other hand, relies on clear rewards, challenges and playful incentives to steer behavior and increase engagement.
Elements of gamification: the building blocks of playfulness
Gamification works through various elements that appeal to different motivational factors. These can be divided into four categories:
Performance and progress
These elements address the human need for growth and development:
- Progress indicators visualize the learning progress and show how much has already been achieved.
- Points and experience points quantify achievements and create a sense of accumulation.
- Level and rank structure the learning process in manageable stages.
- Badges and insignia recognize special achievements and milestones.
- Challenges and quests offer concrete tasks with clear objectives.
- Skill trees show different development paths.
Cooperation and social interaction
People are social beings. These elements utilize the need for community:
- Teams and guilds enable joint learning and mutual support.
- Team challenges promote cooperation and joint goal achievement.
- Profiles and social comparisons create transparency about performance and progress.
- Common goals combine individual efforts with group success.
- Mentoring systems enable Learners to support beginners.
Competition
Healthy competition can motivate, but must be used in moderation:
- Rankings and leaderboards show the best performers.
- Competitions and tournaments create time-limited challenges.
- Time limits create a certain urgency.
- Bets and challenges enable playful challenges between colleagues.
Immersion
These elements create a captivating learning atmosphere:
- Storytelling and narratives embed learning content in exciting stories.
- Virtual characters offer opportunities for identification.
- Unlockable content creates curiosity and anticipation.
- Role-playing elements allow you to try out new roles.
- Thematic worlds package learning content in appealing environments.
Motivational effect of gamification elements
The effect of gamification is based on the clever combination of different types of motivation. If you understand these mechanisms, you can use gamification in a more targeted way:
Intrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation arises from within and is particularly sustainable. Gamification can promote it in various ways:
- Autonomy and freedom of choice: Learners can choose their own paths, tackle different challenges or choose between levels of difficulty.
- Competence and experience of effectiveness: Through clear progress indicators and achievable goals, Learners experience that they are actually getting better.
- Social inclusion: Team challenges and cooperative elements create a sense of belonging. People are more motivated to learn when they feel part of a community.
- Meaningfulness: Gamification can embed learning content in meaningful contexts. Learners understand the meaning of their efforts through storytelling or real-life application scenarios.
Extrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation comes from outside and can be very effective in the short term:
- Rewards: Points, badges and certificates offer concrete rewards for learning success. The brain's reward center reacts to them, even if the rewards only have symbolic value.
- Recognition: Rankings and public recognition address the need for social recognition. Many people are willing to do more if their successes are visible.
- Competition: Comparing yourself with others can release additional energy. Healthy competition spurs you on without overtaxing you.
- Avoiding negative consequences: Time limits or the risk of losing a level can also motivate - but should be used sparingly.
The interplay of both types of motivation
Successful gamification skillfully combines both types of motivation:
- Avoid the crowding-out effect: Too many extrinsic rewards can crowd out intrinsic motivation. Ensure a balanced relationship.
- Long-term vs. short-term effect: Extrinsic elements can have an initial motivating effect, while intrinsic factors have a long-term effect. Plan accordingly.
- Personalization: Different people react differently to motivational elements. Offer different options so that every can find the right approach.
Gamification examples: Successful implementations in practice
These successful examples of gamification show how typical game elements in different areas motivate people to participate.
Duolingo: Learning languages the fun way
Duolingo is a prime example of successful gamification. The language learning platform uses various game-like elements:
- The Streak system motivates you to learn every day.
- Experience points quantify learning progress.
- Levels and units structure learning clearly.
- Lingots (virtual currency) enable purchases in the virtual store.
- Ranking lists create social competition.
- Achievements recognize special performances.
The result: over 500 million users regularly learn with Duolingo - motivated by game-like elements and the visualization of learning progress.
Other successful examples of gamification
- Nike+ Run Club: The fitness app motivates with challenges, badges and social comparisons. Runners share their successes and spur each other on.
- Starbucks Rewards: The loyalty program works like a game. Customers collect stars, reach a new status level and receive rewards.
- SAP Community Network: The professional platform uses points and badges to promote knowledge sharing. Members are rewarded for helpful contributions.
- Microsoft Language Quality Game: Microsoft had users rate translations in a game. Within a few months, the translation quality improved considerably.
Gamification in companies
Companies use gamification successfully in various areas:
- Onboarding processes: New employees go through playfully designed induction programs and everyday tasks are given game-like elements. Checklists become quests and progress is visualized.
- Compliance trainingDry rules and regulations are brought to life through gamification. Employees collect points for completed modules and compete in quizzes.
- Sales training: Sales teams use ranking lists and challenges to improve sales techniques. Successful deals are recognized with badges.
- Innovation management: Idea competitions are designed to be fun. Employees collect points for submitted ideas and their evaluation.
Where does gamification come in?
The use of gamification requires a certain image of people, which we in HR development can best describe as a "growth mindset". After all, a game is nothing more than a voluntary attempt to overcome obstacles, says Rackwitz. He criticizes the blatant contradiction to this, which he observes time and again:
"We try to design obstacles out of our everyday lives all the time. We want to make everything predictable and efficient - that's the opposite of games."
Gamification therefore does not serve to make a learning environment as efficient as possible. This would result in a loss of excitement. Rather, it is about designing the learning journey with game-like elements. Learners are guided through various challenges and levels so that they themselves notice - and receive data-based visual feedback on - how they improve over time. Complex tasks are broken down into manageable stages, avoiding the feeling of being overwhelmed. This tickles the learner's ambition and triggers a positive "hunt for the better self". Therein lies the increase in motivation.
In addition to self-improvement, other motivators also come into play. Depending on the personality and environment of the learner, these factors, among others, have different effects:
- Self-efficacy: People realize that what they have done (learning effort) has a quantifiable effect (they reach a new level).
- Self-esteem enhancement: Self-esteem is enhanced either by comparing oneself with others or by fulfilling one's own performance expectations.
- Completion motive: This is a social motivation - Learners want to belong to the club of those who have reached a certain level.
- Employability: Obtained certificates are also visible proof that you can do something. They can therefore play a role in the next salary increase, a job change or securing your current job.
The role of gamification for self-directed learning
Today, a large part of learning in organizations no longer takes place formally through clearly prescribed seminars or training courses, the completion of which is a prerequisite. Instead, the importance of self-directed learning is constantly increasing. Modern learning experience platforms support learners in finding the learning content that is relevant to them. They receive personalized learning suggestions and knowledge can be acquired and directly applied at the "moment of need".
The relevance for learners is significantly greater in this case, as the learning trigger is intrinsically motivated. The basis for effective gamification has therefore been created: The material itself is important and meaningful to the learner. Nevertheless, in stressful everyday life, additional pushes are sometimes needed to support motivation. It motivates Learners when they can see their progress thanks to gamification and, in addition to new knowledge and solved work problems, have something "in their hands" that makes the time invested in learning even more worthwhile.
The use of gamification is also a question of corporate culture
In the professional environment, there are always reservations about "gimmicks". It therefore also depends on the corporate culture whether typical game elements can be used sensibly, says Rackwitz:
"Imagine this: A company suddenly introduces a learning game, but from the employees' point of view, the company is not playful at all and their boss is the most uncreative and unfunny guy. Then they don't think it's a good idea to play the game."
In contrast to game-based learning, however, gamification has an advantage: the basic idea is to make reality better for people, not just to adapt the design. It's about the psychological mechanics behind games, not the visuals. According to Roman Rackwitz, the productivity potential lies "not in the fact that people say 'I've played and now I'm back to work', but that they realize that the job or learning has become more intuitive." Gamification doesn't necessarily have to look like a game to users. This way, no one is embarrassed to have to say "I'm serious, I'm not playing games here."
Advantages and challenges of gamification
Gamification brings measurable benefits, but also challenges that you should be aware of. An honest assessment helps you make a strategic decision.
Advantages for companies
Gamification offers measurable benefits for organizations:
- Increased motivation to learnStudies show that up to 90% of respondents experience gamification as increasing productivity, while at the same time over 70% report a noticeable increase in motivation. Employees spend more time on learning content and return to it more often.
- Improved employee retention: gamification can increase employee engagement. People who enjoy learning identify more strongly with the company.
- Measurable learning success: Integrated tracking systems allow you to measure learning progress in detail. This data helps to optimize learning content and calculate the ROI.
- Cost efficiency: Once implemented, gamified systems can reach many employees without the need for additional trainers . Scalability is high.
- Knowledge retention: Playful elements can help to retain knowledge better. Repetition becomes less monotonous through gamification.
Challenges during implementation
Despite the advantages, there are also challenges:
- Cultural resistance: Not all employees or managers are open to gamified approaches. Convince them with pilot projects and measurable successes in gamification.
- Technical complexity and costs: Gamification often requires technical adjustments to existing systems. Plan sufficient time and budget for implementation and start with simple elements that you can expand step by step.
- Sustainability of motivation: The novelty effect can wear off. Develop gamification systems continuously in order to motivate in the long term.
- Measurability of success: Not all the benefits of gamification are easy to quantify. Define clear KPIs before implementation.
- Excessive competition: Too much competition can be demotivating or even harmful. Ensure a good balance between competition and cooperation.
- Gamification fatigue: If too many systems are gamified, employees can switch off. Use gamification in a targeted manner, not across the board.
- Ethical concerns: Gamification can have a manipulative effect. Be transparent about the mechanisms used and respect the autonomy of learners.
- Trivialization of learning content: Too much gamification can make important content seem superficial. Find the right balance between fun and seriousness.
Future prospects: Gamification in transition
The development of gamification is dynamic. Various trends are shaping the future:
- AI-supported personalization: Artificial intelligence makes it possible to customize gamification elements. Learners receive customized challenges and rewards.
- Virtual and augmented reality: VR and AR open up new possibilities for immersive gamification experiences. Complex scenarios can be realistically simulated.
- Mobile learning-approaches: Gamification is increasingly being optimized for mobile devices. Microlearning units with game-like elements fit perfectly into everyday life.
- MicrolearningIntegration: Short, gamified learning units (so-called learning nuggets) can be better integrated into everyday working life. This makes just-in-time learning more attractive.
- Social gamification: team-based elements are becoming more important. Joint challenges and collaborative successes are more motivating than individual competition.
Technological development will continue to drive gamification forward. In future, sensors could take physiological data into account and adapt game elements in real time. At the same time, ethical aspects are coming more into focus: transparency, user autonomy and the responsible use of motivation mechanisms are becoming key quality features.
However, one thing remains unchanged: Successful gamification starts with relevant content and a corporate culture that values learning and development. Gamification is most successful when the entire learning process is designed in such a way that it offers a real challenge and enables progress in the sense of a "hunt for the better self". The game-like elements then reinforce an already existing willingness to learn - they do not replace it. Companies that take this principle to heart can use gamification to sustainably increase the motivation and performance of their teams.
FAQ
What is gamification simply explained?
Gamification means incorporating game elements into non-game areas. Imagine your learning program works like a computer game - you collect points for completing tasks, reach new levels as you progress and receive rewards for successes. This makes dry content more interesting and motivates people to stick with it. The highlight: it's not about real gaming, but about the psychological mechanisms that make games so fascinating.
What types of gamification are there?
Gamification can be divided into different categories: Structural gamification adds typical game elements such as points and badges without changing the content. Content gamification transforms the learning material itself in a playful way. Social gamification uses team elements and competition between groups. Personal gamification focuses on individual progress and self-improvement. Most successful approaches combine several types for maximum impact.
What is an example of gamification?
A good example is Duolingo: the language learning platform uses points for completed lessons, streak systems for daily learning, levels for progress and leaderboards for social competition. users collect virtual lingots, can unlock achievements and compete against each other in leagues. The result: over 500 million people regularly learn languages, motivated by game-like elements that make learning fun.
What are gamification tools?
Gamification tools are software solutions that integrate game-like elements into learning platforms. These include learning management systems (LMS) with integrated gamification functions, specialized gamification platforms and learning experience platformsLXP) with personalized game elements. Many tools offer points systems, badge management, ranking lists and progress tracking. Haufe Akademie 's Learning Experience Platform , for example, seamlessly integrates such elements into everyday learning.
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