EXPERT VIEW Joel Onyshuk, founder of Huddle Tech, Unisyn
Regardless of what sort of gamification you employ to engage, motivate, and focus your employees, several underlying needs exist to be addressed.
The employees must be able to know, in real-time (or at least daily), if they are winning or losing against their critical objectives and/or KPIs. Whether you are winning or losing changes the way you behave. You must have developed a community where communication is clear and open. Simply adding another tool or piece of tech isn’t the total solution but must be something that actively enables organization priorities.
A football team losing 24-7 at halftime would not continue to play the exact same way in the second half. They would adjust their behavior based on the score and the needs of the moment. As a result, there needs to be absolute clarity surrounding what those objectives and/or KPIs are, why they are important, how they benefit the company, and what’s in it for the employees (i.e., motivation) if they succeed. Organizations must understand what matters most and where effort drives maximum results. The idea of gamification, at its core, allows for keen focus on priorities that drive desired results. Without an understanding of where to focus, there is a risk of wasted effort and lackluster results.
Defining a corporate “obsession”, a major, time-constrained, and impactful goal, and then repackaging it in such a way that it motivates and engages the frontline teams is essential, and yet this critical step is missed by most organizations.
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