What are the benefits of gamification for your company? Has it been affected by COVID-19 or, on the contrary, has it benefited from it? Is it a necessary tool in companies?
COVID-19 & Gamification
If we look back to the 2008 economic crisis, it had a major impact on virtually all sectors, and led to a widespread engagement crisis in which the fear of ‘spending’ or ‘not being able to spend’ scuppered many decisions in the day to day life of society. Gamification knows what a crisis is, it is not the first one it has faced.
Companies needed to get back in touch and to interact with their clients and employeesas quickly as possible in order to get them excited again with their value proposals, combating the fears and disinterest of society at a complicated time.
Under this cloud of uncertainty and fear, there was one industry that did not experience a fall in revenue. Furthermore, it was the only one that grew almost exponentially until today, when we still had doubts as to whether we had come out of the crisis. Do you know which one it was? : The video game industry..
Video games in team development
The arrival of smartphones and tablets, with their technological capabilities, not only led to this sharp rise in revenue in the sector, but also opened gaming up to all audiences During the same period, the argument of using gaming techniques to generate engagement, and even using video games to develop people. was something that companies began to get a good grasp of.
This led to the growth of video games in general, and for all audiences, contributing greatly to the rise of gamification as a trend, andcompanies deciding to invest in it to obtain something similar in their business models or internal processes.
That is why gamification began to come to the fore in 2010, despite first arriving in the midst of this great 2008 crisis But, as with all trends, gamification entered into disillusionment for many by 2019 This whole entertainment industry boom seemed to have hit a ceiling and where gamification found itself in a phase of moderate but sustainable growth after the initial fad.
The arrival of COVID-19
Against this backdrop, COVID-19 arrived all of a sudden and with it, a health, social and economic crisis, which has held the world as we knew it to ransom This virus has changed the rules of the game in just a few months, not only to face this new stage of change in the world, society, companies and people, but also to accelerate changes that many governments and companies have yet to address.
“We seem to be back to a similar context to what happened from 2008 onwards, where gamification became a necessary tool to re-engage our employees, thus improving our companies’ productivity, efficiency and results.”
This crisis is forcing all companies to rethink their strategies caused by a change in priorities. The digitalisation of processes and jobs has now become an urgent issue as a consequence of teleworking, and the shock we have all experienced.
We are entering a period of high uncertainty, fear and where economies, and therefore companies and their investments, are going to be affected. But we seem to be back to a similar context to what happened from 2008 onwards, where gamification became a necessary tool to re-engage our employees, thus improving our companies’ productivity, efficiency and results
All of this has forced us to reflect on and find clear benefits of how gamification is going to generate engagement at a time when it is necessary to adapt quickly to this ‘new normal’:
Benefits of Gamification for companies:
- Gamification makes it possible to Digitalise Processes and avoid risks. It makes it possible to adapt and provide solutions with no physical contact. There is still a long way to go, in which physical contact between people will be restricted to minimise risks, even if it is derived from people’s fear of COVID-19, or even the next pandemic.
- It provides solutions based on customised projects for clients. This leads us to ask the question: what is the cost of gamification? It is not about being cheap or expensive, it is about return on investment. There is nothing wrong with taking risks, especially if you believe in something and you are going to be the first to put it into practice.
- Knowledge and resources anywhere: gamification provides quick and easy access to all resources, and training anywhere thanks to today’s technology.
- Convenient remote access: individuals’ learning pace is respected and each person individually adapts training to their needs. Comfort and practicality above all.
- Gamification is versatileand can be applied to most of your learning needs, for example, sales, customer service, social skills, awareness creation, etc.
- Fun: the participant is ‘having fun’ while learning, and therefore their level of engagement with the activity is quite high, which supports success in knowledge retention.
- Effectiveness: gamification can provide an effective learning enhancement method. It evokes friendly competition, while providing participants with a sense of achievement and an engaging learning experience. It also stimulates them and spurs them into action, strongly influencing their behaviour.
” Gamification is facing a unique moment, where the rules of the game are changing again, and where the quickest to understand how to play the game will find new opportunities”
In short, we are facing a scenario that indicates it is a good time for Gamification, a unique moment where the rules of the game are changing again, and where the quickest to understand how to play the game will find new opportunities. Gaming will once again serve as leverage for the challenges we will have to face as a society and as companies in the coming years.
And as the daily newspaper El País recently stated in an article: “Bringing the dynamics of games to the educational and business environment improves the interest and engagement of students and employees, and has numerous benefits”.
IDEA is committed to this trend aimed to developing people, digitalising jobs and improving customer engagement in processe becoming the number one priority for companies nowadays. That is why we are working on the development of an exclusive gamification APP focused 100% on your need.
Don’t fall behind and look for new opportunities. What are you waiting for?
If you would like to know in depth what gamification is, take a look at our previous post.
Are you interested in gamification? Would you like to implement this methodology in your company? Contact us and our specialised gamified training team will get back to you as quickly as possible.
Specialists in recruitment and industrial outsourcing.
Specialists in recruitment and industrial outsourcing.