Amplification of Organizational Performance & Individual Outcomes using Gamification - A Case Study

When do you give your best performance at the workplace? Well, answers vary – some people need a deadline looming over them, others drink lots of coffee and a few, incentivized by hefty bonuses. If you really think about it, all of these cause stress. We have trained ourselves to perform in a state of stress and it is popularly perceived as a positive trait among many working professionals. Whilst it might be for some, it leaves a bulk of the workforce at the performance level that is less than the best to put it mildly.

Disengagement in the new norm?

In the recent past, the work culture, designed and applied in a rigid goal-oriented manner has struggled to keep pace with the speed of change. Changing technology, rapidly evolving market ecosystem and most importantly, the radically shifting thought process and behaviors of the generation coming into the work force today, the GenZ. 

This is resulting in a lack of culture of engagement, leading to increasing attrition, falling productivity and most importantly talent drain. Conventional top down approaches of rewards and consequence management no longer has the impact it delivered in the past; in fact, over time it has become counterproductive. The current and possibly the new norm of limited social interaction will only aggravate the issue. Going digital is not the only answer. Digital is, but a medium, it is imperative to focus on the 'human' in the entire process, the most important factor.

The need is to build engagement bottom up and that is where gamification comes in. Gamification drives self-motivation, takes the disengaged brain to the highest levels of engagement by taking it into the state of play and thus brings about engagement at a belief level. Through the following case study, I will endeavor to highlight how we successfully built employee engagement and amplified organization performance in a complex, remotely distributed conventional brick and mortar multinational organization.

The prelude

The organization, a 21 billion USD Engineering, Manufacturing and Projects giant from India, started its ‘Digital’ journey in 2016. Whilst a slew of Digital solutions was being deployed every week and month, it was becoming amply clear, that a different and innovative approach was required to bring about the desired change which was not incremental but transformational in nature, in an industry which hinges on ‘human capital’.

Then suddenly, all the pieces fit together in one moment of inspiration when during a brainstorming session, in a cross-functional meeting, the head of digital & the head of HR introduced the topic of Gamification! They were optimistic that it might help but being aware of the Industry background, advised the team to tread cautiously.

But would gamification work in conventional brick and mortar business environments?

Given the industry sector, quite a lot of eyebrows were raised doubting if gamification is understood? Could it be replicated in a business environment? Also, is it possible to execute it digitally hence reaching the last mile of operations without eating into productive time? Can it really sow the seeds of change in a long run? Is it easy to understand? What can appeal people? Help Digital spread? Lead the cultural change? Motivate people? Enable creative thinking? And most importantly to fulfil the objectives of this intervention to beef up the business performance?

It was a well-known fact that the Projects business or brick and mortar or steel and concrete industry had the least fun element. In the backdrop of this whole confusion the leadership called us, THE GAMIFICATIONCOMPANY, (then operating under the umbrella of Paathshala Learning Solution), to consult with them on how gamification could be effectively implemented.  After few rounds of discussions, raising the bar of awareness higher than what it was in the beginning, having understood how the gamification principles could bring about transformation in human behaviors, the team, which now included us, set the ball rolling.

It was also handy that apart from being gamification evangelists, we were also had an innovative gamification platform, COROEBUS to offer.

Step 1: Defining the desired outcome – The Have

Using the ‘Ethos of Gamification’, practiced by us at TGC, the first task of the initiative was to define the desired outcome form the initiative, both tangible as well as intangible. It soon became evident that multiple outcomes were visible, both tangible and intangible.

• Digital Adoption
• Reduction in working capital
• Improvement in Productivity

The leadership felt that the most important and sustainable outcome should be a sense of discipline and efficiency in Billing and Collections.

Step 2 - Identifying the GAMIFICATION theme

Gamification initiative – based on Cricket as a sport, almost a religion in the Indian Sub-Continent and using a popular cricket tournament in the background, TIPL (Transportation Infrastructure 

Premier League) was conceptualized. With the cricket theme as one of the key themes available on the Coroebus platform, designing the game play and execution became easier. The choice of the theme was important as it was the first time an initiative such as this was introduced in a very traditional organization. It had to be a theme that appealed across levels, age groups and gender.

Step 3 – Defining the engagement levers - The 'Do'

This is where the business KPI that would drive the desired outcomes were aligned to the game elements. This was a critical exercise; a continuously moving scoreboard keeps the engagement levels high. 

Hence, the alignment of the business KPIs to the game elements had to be designed basis the frequency of availability of data. For example, the first thought that comes to mind when one thinks about cricket is ‘Scoring Runs’. Hence, the business KPI that was aligned to scoring runs was ‘Daily progress report’. The inbuilt balance scorecard mechanism in the Coroebus platform was used to ensured that all the KPIs were focused on at a subliminal level. ‘Digital adoption’ was driven by making the organizational digital tools as the only data source for the KPIs.

Step 4: Driving Engagement : Using Neuroscience of Play & “Yu Kai Chou’ inspired Octalysis Principles - The 'Be'

Octalysis principles were used at multiple levels and layers in the entire gamification initiative. The overarching principle was driving a sense of ‘Accomplishment’ and ‘Ownership’ at a project level by using Leader boards that were distributed on desktop and mobile devices.

Because this was a project vs. project competition, the sense of ‘Meaning’ was driven into the project team members. They were playing for their teams. This also drove ‘Avoidance’ as no one wanted to see their teams sitting in the bottom for a longer period of time. Despite the fact that the project teams were located in remote corners of the country, the transition from ‘Fence Sitters and Laggards’ to active participants was achieved within a couple of weeks because of ‘Social Influence’, once gain with the widespread visibility of dashboards and leader-boards. Every team wanted to put their best foot forward hoping to get better of the others, driven by ‘Unpredictability’.

Step 5 : Driving Engagement : Creation of teams – Design your own logo

24 project teams across the country participated in the league. Project team members, right from the project leader to the support team member participated in creating their own Team Logos and Slogans. 

The Coroebus platform enabled personalization through upload of team logo and the project leaders’ pictures. All dashboards and leader-boards carried the team logos and project leader pictures.

Step 6 : Points, Badges, Leader-boards and Rewards 

The point scoring system was made transparent through dashboards and leader-boards. This ensured all teams were able to strategize their score movement basis their business realities.

Leader-boards and dashboards were made easily accessible and highly visible through desktop, mobile app and social media distribution.

Popular badges such as Master Blaster, Pinch Hitter, Master Bowler and Flying Jonty were awarded based on the performances in selected areas. These were the most talked about during the IPL season. The challenge was how to draw a parallel between Cricket, IPL and the Construction activities.

Other awards all in the IPL style like the orange, purple, olive and magenta caps were introduced to recognize the top performers at various milestones and ensure continuous motivation within the teams.

Step 7 : Driving Engagement : The Game Launch & Social Media Engagement

The team did an electrifying launch using a state-of-the-art Augmented Reality (3D holographic virtual projection mashed up with real picture taken with camera) and kicked off the game in style. There was tremendous enthusiasm among the teams and the employees in the office.

 The launch program was live-streamed through Facebook @ Workplace-Live to all the project sites. Facebook was utilized to the maximum to create engagement. This engagement, through comments, likes, replies, views and seen, went up several folds. Management participated regularly to call out the teams, captains and people who did excellent work during the TIPL.

What was achieved? Transformation at the core belief level and a future promise…

The engineering and construction industry stereotype was broken at every step by adopting fun in work, which was evident from the behavior of the top to bottom of the organization, be it in the conception, the run up, during the event and even during the closing event. For the first time, gamification was executed in an Engineering and Construction and Manufacturing industry major.

Gamification was experimented in the core business process to boost the Business KPIs, to push Digital adoption and to increase the level of employee engagement with fun, inquisitiveness in an industry which is not an apparent believer of such in day to day business. The process injected enthusiasm, competitive spirit and fun in the business esp. at the remote project Sites. Over a 3-month run, the gamification initiative yielded achieving business KPIs, employee bonding and engagement to a level hitherto never experienced before across multiple remote projects.

Most of the Business performance metrics got solid boosts which include Physical Progress, Financial metrics and employee engagement metrics. Scoring runs and taking wickets had become the center stage of conversations at the workplace and home alike. The employee’s day job, otherwise delivered mostly through a fatigued, disengaged state of mind with varied outcomes had suddenly transformed into a consistently high performing outcome. The positive change in behaviors was observable and productivity levels were up. Using the gamification principles, the fact that every individual irrespective of level or role makes a difference was established and embedded at a core belief level.

Some continued successes of this initiative.

TIPL is now in its 3rd season and has been extended to teams operating overseas

A white paper on how gamification was used to drive employee engagement and organization performance in the engineering and construction industry has been submitted to Michigan State University as a case study.