This white paper discusses using gamification principles to motivate employee behavior in businesses. It defines gamification as using game mechanics and dynamics to achieve business objectives, both externally with customers and internally with employees. The paper provides examples of how gamifying activities like knowledge sharing can increase employee collaboration through rewards, badges, leaderboards, and competitions. It emphasizes designing gamification that is fun, engaging, and provides feedback and rewards to change behaviors.

1. White Paper on
SOCIAL EMPLOYEE RECOGNITION -
ENTERPRISE GAMIFICATION
By
Naval Vithalani
Zensar Consulting Team
Naval Vithalani is the Social Media, Loyalty and Mobility Lead with Zensar Technologies'
Consulting Practice. He specializes in Social CRM, Enterprise Engagement programs and
Customer engagement strategies for customers across vertical industries. Naval comes with
a vast experience in Retail and Manufacturing industries.
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2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Since 2010, the word ‘Gamification’ has been making the rounds and is still one of the most
misunderstood business terms. When the term ‘Gamification’ is brought up, most people think of it
as some sort of a 'Game' with a beautiful UI, Levels, Mission and Multi Player system.
Gamification is not a ‘Game Game’ but a more meaningful and powerful concept. Gamification is the
use of Gaming Dynamics and Mechanics to achieve business objectives. Objectives could be external
(customer, reviewers, investors) or could be internal (associates, agents).
Gamification can be used across age groups and still have the impact desired. If an activity is
Gamified it can change human behaviour. Think about it, how would a consumer goods company
react to if you could change the way their customers behave / consume?
THE ENTERPRISE GAMIFICATION CHALLENGE
Over the past couple of years, organizations across industries have invested huge sums in Business
Process Improvement projects, Employee Training and Motivation projects. How many of them
consider to have achieved the provable nirvana that the systems promised - Very few.
No matter how much an organization invests in improving systems, processes or morale somehow it
usually fails or doesn't achieve the expected results. So what’s going on here, why aren't all the
initiatives raising the organizational boat to higher productivity - the reason is people aren't
motivated enough to perform.
Then there are incidents in every organization where they invested millions in getting a
Collaboration and Knowledge Management platform but the adoption is near zero. Countless
functions are still run based on a few people and the organizational growth is hampered.
Gamification can be effectively used to improve the adoption of newer technology and helps create
healthy competition in an organization.
When an organization invests in systems, it’s not taken as a challenge by the associates / agents but
as one more thing that has changed. The challenge is to take an activity and convert it from being
boring to interesting.
ENTERPRISE GAMIFICATION INTRODUCTION
The Gamification is not about creating a video game, it’s about recognizing the psychological triggers
that make games engaging, and applying them in appropriate ways for the business. It’s the use of
Gaming principles and applying them to real world problems
Gaming Layer is about modifying people’s behaviour by tapping into the psychological triggers that
prompt them to behave in a particular way and to take action by keeping them interested and
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3. engaged. Gaming Layer is about understanding what motivates us and then changing the rules of the
games accordingly.
The corporate environment has undergone a huge
change in the past 10yrs; today nearly 25% of
employees are from Gen Y
born in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They are
‘digital natives’ who have already spent
considerable time on some kind of gaming platform
or the other and who need a positive feedback
mechanism to help achieve results.
The process of transforming boring activities to
interesting ones is achieved by the use of
Gamification. The trick is to incorporate certain
principles of Gamification, to make any activity
'Fun', 'Challenging' and 'Exciting'.
By leveraging on the basic human behaviour 'Achievement', 'Wins', 'Envy' any activity can be made
interesting. It's said that with the proper mix of Gaming Mechanics and Gaming Dynamics you can
motivate someone to do almost anything.
Before deep diving into Gamification; time to ponder on an important point. Remember the video
game era of 1980s and the most famous of them Donkey Kong. Now ask yourself a question, how
you reacted when a sibling or a mate got a high score. Did you let it be, or did you pull the gaming
console from their hands and try to beat the high score. THAT’S GAMIFICATION FOR YOU.
THE 4 I’ OF GAMIFICATION
Involvement - Gamification fosters increased participation by increasing the number of times the
employee performs an activity. The involvement is higher if the employee is incentivized with
relevant rewards.
Interaction - It is not just about attending say a training session, but also how long the employee
helps build the organization knowledge base by taking some training. By setting up a ‘Task-Reward’
dynamic employees can be influenced to act in a particular manner.
Intimacy - Gamification provides a channel to convert employees into ‘Influencers’ and ‘Advocates’.
By incentivizing people with badges and virtual goods for various activities we can convert an
employee into an ‘Advocate’.
Influence - By incentivizing behaviour Gamification helps the business create influencers in the
marketplace.
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4. APPLYING GAMIFICATION
Applying Gamification in any organization is a huge challenge; it not only requires a proper design to
keep the game interesting and relevant but also deals with the ‘human’ factor. Here’s an example
how Knowledge Sharing can be Gamified
Objective – To increase Knowledge sharing and Collaboration across the organization.
Virtual Currencies – Virtual currency can be rewarded to the employees for every task that they
undertake and for every time they beat the clock. Virtual currencies can later be converted to real
world rewards like gift cards etc. This conversion helps increase motivation amongst others to
execute the tasks and get rewards.
Badges – Employees who share on the Collaboration / Knowledge Management platforms earn
Badges and slowly move up the Hierarchy from a Rookie to a Special Agent. These Badges can be
displayed on the employees personal profile page on the intranet.
Leader boards – Leader boards give a sense of achievement to the employee and also acts as a
major motivator for other employees. Leader Boards are very powerful motivators where employees
compete against each other to reach the top spot. Employees who are most active on the
Collaboration / Knowledge Management platform move up the leader boards.
Fig 2 - The Engagement Loop
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5. Cross Functional Competition – Having an inter-departmental Leader board helps in creating the
environment for various functions in the organization can compete against each other. This creates a
sense of cross organizational competition aimed at achieving the organizational goals. This helps
create an environment of healthy competition in the organization.
Way Forward
When designed properly, Gamification helps create a healthy competition across the organization
aimed at meeting the strategic goals.
KEY POINTS OF GAMIFICATION
• Know your Gamer and their motivations
• Design a Journey
• Make it Fun
• Make it easy to play and yet difficult to master
• Give Feedback and show progress
• Reward every action
• With Dynamics you can get anyone to act the way you want them to
• Renewed engagement
• Leverage existing systems
ZENSAR TECHNOLOGIES
Zensar Technologies is among the top 20 software services providers from India. Zensar's industry
expertise spans across Manufacturing, Retail, Healthcare, Banking Financial Services and Insurance.
Zensar has more than 7000 associates with sales and operations presence across USA, UK, Europe,
Middle East, South Africa, Singapore, China, Australia and Japan. The Company delivers
comprehensive services in mission-critical applications, enterprise applications, e-business, BPO and
Knowledge Services. The Company has developed tools and methodologies, including the
proprietary Solution BluePrint (SBP), which enables its clients with innovative business solutions and
a rapid 'go-to market' capability. The Company supports Fortune 500 clients with software business
solutions that help them compete in the digital economy.
For more information write into Marcom@zensar.com
© Zensar Technologies 2012 www.zensar.com