Gamification For Modern Learning — The New Normal

2020 was the revolutionary year for all of us. It has added masks, social distancing, and sanitizer in our daily routine in such a way that we cannot even imagine now going out without them. It has greatly impacted every sector of the world. Now it’s been 2021, and still, there is a complete lockdown to the educational institutions. This has given rise to more e-learning platforms all over the globe. 

The learning process also plays a significant role in the business sector. With the advancement in technological discipline or any new invention, there is always a portion for training and development in the companies for their workforce.

But the concern here is about the active learning that can truly impact the employees’ development. In this puzzling situation, gamification came as a powerful clue that can solve every educational system’s problem and also helps the companies to enhance their learning programs.

There are numerous advantages of using gamification. It makes the session more interactive and challenging and keeps the employees woke up that previously felt boring and sleepy with such class. Not only this, the platform handles many tasks of the HR department and makes them more meaningful and conveying to their workers.

In this technologically evolved world, not a single individual out there who is not familiar with games. Using that concept in the learning programs will give much better and quality outputs. It is the right time to leverage the wonders of gamification in this new working condition to perform well even after the global pandemic in a more positive and successful way.

Pondering how gamification can do all such things? This article will solve all your doubts and queries about the usefulness of gamification for modern learning. 

Let’s get started with it.  

What Does Gamification Mean

It is all about using the game mechanism in the learning context to enhance learners’ engagement levels. It makes use of visual graphics to develop an environment where they feel competitive. It tends to use their natural behavior strategies of achieving, collaborating, and getting something in return will improve their attentiveness towards it.

Such practice works significantly as a boosting source that motivates employees to work and, as a result, improvises their performance to give the best outcome. Every organization can use this concept in almost every area like employee development, sales, and even in improving customer experience, gamification shares their contribution. Also, according to Statista, there is continuous growth in the gamification market, as shown in the figure below.

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Merits Of Gamification

Have you ever thought about why everyone likes to play games? It is not just related to children or teenagers; almost every age group likes such activity. The reason for it is these practices give them a pleasant and enjoyable feeling. It works as a cleaner that washes all the dirt of stress from their mind. And in such a situation, only one can do the true learning.

Let’s understand more about gamification by referring to its advantages, as mentioned below.

Gives New Ways For Learning

Consider the previous scenario where everyone used to read long manuals in their training sessions. Firstly it is a really tough job to do so, and secondly, even after reading it, the outcome one can get is a big circle; ‘zero.’

Gamification converts this boring session into a fun and interactive mode. Cisco has used a similar concept in their social media training. It consists of three stages. In each stage, the workers have to build more knowledge about social media to get the certification as a reward.  

Using the gaming elements, you can make the process more engaging as it works more psychologically. Not a single HR can deny the fact that engaging the workers is a very tough job. They always suffer a lot to find the best strategies that affect them.

But this case will not remain the same anymore. Combining gamification with HR processes, you can make the learning and engaging criteria up to the mark. Adding rewards and badges at every stage boosts them to do well to gain all those praises. When the learning path contains such surprising elements for the workers, they indeed perform well and remain engaged with their job. The below statistic works as proof for using gamification in learning.

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Helpful To Remote Workers 

Everyone is well-known for the fact that the WFH is becoming the new office for all of us. In that scenario, gamification can work like a magnet to link all the members of the team. Often what HR does is finds the best human resource management software that handles all the repetitive tasks, and they get proper time for their people management. Giving sufficient time to the workers can work only when they find an environment where they feel happy and enthusiastic to work.

While building strategies for team-building activities remotely, consider gamification also. When the team members feel connected and competitive to achieve the goal, they work more collaboratively. It builds more trust, support, critical thinking, strategic planning and strengthens the team to work hard. Such practice is essential to perform while working remotely.

It works in a dual format. Along with boosting employees’ morale, it gives them the essence of playing games that also refreshes them from the daily work routine. At the end of the day, it surely helps the remote workers to stay productive and effective with their job.

Gamified Wellness Session

Looking for improving workplace wellness is an important duty of every organization. The more energetic and healthy a worker feels, the more he/she will be able to work with a concentrated mind. Every HRD is making efforts for it. It helps in the workplace and remote working scenarios. If wellness is that crucial, then why not amalgamate it with the gaming mechanics.

Like basketball, football, and cricket, where the scoreboard is used to display the game’s current situation, you can use it in the wellness programs. As human nature mostly supports to do rest rather than making efforts for their health. This case is especially true for weekends or holidays. Using the gaming concept can catch their attraction towards wellness.

What you can do is make separate teams and arrange different rounds containing various wellness activities. In each round, consider the group or individual face-off where each team participates. Doing such practice will improve their enthusiasm for winning and also enhances their health. Just think how effective it will be rather than following the older health practices. Doing so even once will impact greatly on the workers. They will easily learn the necessity of doing such health exercises that energize them to work well.  

Develops New Model Of Onboarding   

For every newly hired employee, their onboarding stage is very crucial. It introduces them to the company and their respective role and responsibilities. Making it paper-based and full of forms and documents will not bring the expected outcome. It only results in time consumption and limits the learning journey of the worker.

To make the process more effective and successful, it is necessary to adopt a new methodology. Gamification can help out in making the onboarding process extraordinary.

Thinking how? Read the below-mentioned points.

• Firstly it makes the manual process automated using the digitalized technology. It makes the progressing bar more visible and effective. Employees will find the process of uploading the required documents, getting them verified, knowing their roles for the acquired position more interesting if they get such a gaming environment where they get something like an achievement on successful completion of each stage. It is an important reason why gamification is getting more liked by the learners. It is also shown in the statistic as shown below.

• When the employees feel excited about what they do and like the way of learning, they can grab it quickly and retain its knowledge for a longer span. With gaming mechanics, it is possible to achieve the same. You can arrange a quiz test where you can find how much the new joiner is known with the organization and their working structure. Rewarding them for each correct answer and motivating them to see the proper solution for the tough questions is one of the powerful tips to motivate employees to make more efforts and help in keeping them engaged with it for a longer period.

• It is a useful tool to better look for employees’ performance. As an HR manager, you always want to keep track of the workers’ work. Getting a visual platform for the same can make the task more accessible for both the HR managers and the employees. It provides continuous data about their progress and gives appropriate real-time feedback to improve their scorecard.

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Improves Cultural Values

The employees must learn about the culture of the organization. When they know how the firm works and what are activities and routines they follow, they can better link themselves with the organization. Many times it happens that the workers cannot settle down with the culture as their sights are not clear with it.

To remove this darkness, Deloitte came up with gamified style for recruitment. They gave a new shape to the hiring process by making it more interactive. They developed a video so that the viewers know about the culture of Deloitte. Doing so in the recruitment stage helps the new hiree to understand the culture of the company. Such graphical representation impacts more and makes the winning of the business with culture. Adding to this, it also helps retain its value for a longer period that influences workers to perform well for the company’s betterment.        

Conclusion

Gamification can make the rollercoaster ride of learning more entertaining and full of fun. It helps the workers to understand that winning or losing whatsoever happens the important thing is how you attempt and learn rightly from it. One thing this process will assure is immense engagement and involvement with the learning sessions. Therefore, fuel up your learning journey with gamification and smoothly ride the growing path that leads to more success in the future.  

Author Bio

Meet Vara is a passionate content writer and an avid reader, having expertise in creating various ideas for creative writing. He is passionate about researching and exploring blogs, checking out the latest trends, and replicating his expertise in crafting exclusive content. His approach and readiness towards writing quality content are exceptional.