[external] How to gamify processes and boost employee engagment

External content by Raluca-Mirabela Lupu; 18.04.2024
 

Why would you need gamification for your processes?

Gamification is the process of using game elements, such as points, ranks, awards, and competitions, in non-game contexts, like education, business, or health, to motivate and engage participants more actively and involved. Studies show that gamification can have significant positive results. For instance, in the business realm, gamification can enhance employee engagement and improve their performance, leading to increased productivity and customer satisfaction. In short, gamification is an effective technique to foster positive behaviors and achieve specific objectives in various fields.

The simplest method to implement a gamification system would be the collection of points (XP) when certain activities are met in WEBCON BPS processes.

One of the processes frequently used by Encorsa employees is time tracking. In time entries, employees provide details about the activities and projects they've worked on that particular day. Their primary purpose is to monitor employee activity on projects to see their real-time status and to report on the work done at the end.

However, the main issue was that their approval by the manager was only relevant if they were filled out by employees as close to real-time as possible (within 48 hours at most). This was often not the case, except for more disciplined colleagues, with most delaying their completion.

So, we decided to make the process more engaging. We developed an XP system where following various activities an employee might carry out in the digitized processes in WEBCON BPS, they earn XP but can also lose XP.

Besides XP, upon earning a certain number of XP from a specific activity, employees can also receive virtual badges upon reaching certain milestones.

How we introduced gamification based on WEBCON BPS:

1. XP Dictionary- We created a simple dictionary where each employee's XP is collected. It has four straightforward fields: the process from which the XP originates, a description of the received XP, the employee who earned the XP, and the XP's value. Here's what an XP instance looks like:

This is what the global XP report looks like:

2. Global XP- awarding automation To easily incorporate the XP functionality into any already digitized process, we created a global automation that receives the necessary data as parameters and creates an XP instance.

3. A slightly more embellished employee profile. If you don't already have an employee profile in WEBCON, I suggest you create one. There, you can store relevant information about employees, as well as their XP or badges that they can later boast about. In their profile, we added an HTML field where, using a few business rules, we easily displayed in a somewhat non-standard WEBCON manner, some interesting details about the employee.

This would have been substantially more challenging without the new performance indicators functionality. Thank you WEBCON for the new features that come year after year, useful for both business and developers.

4. A slightly more embellished employee profile. If you don't already have an employee profile in WEBCON, I suggest you create one. There, you can store relevant information about employees, as well as their XP or badges that they can later boast about. In their profile, we added an HTML field where, using a few business rules, we easily displayed in a somewhat non-standard WEBCON manner, some interesting details about the employee.

Earning XP is an interesting way to offer a little acknowledgment for each accomplished task. However, no one expected that adding the badge functionality would have such a significant impact. Since badges were added as a feature in this gamification process, I can wholeheartedly say that no timesheet has ever been delayed since.

BADGES:

For badges, we needed two dictionaries in WEBCON. One for the management to define such badges, and another to collect them

1. Defining Badges: This is done in a dictionary where the badge name, description, bonus XP value received upon getting this badge, the process name for which the badge is awarded, and the process name that breaks the combo when necessary are defined. Also included are the necessary combo for the badge, a category for it, and last but not least, a relevant image.

Report of Defined Badges:

2. Dictionary where badges are allocated. There's also a need for a dictionary where we create an instance every time a new badge is allocated to an employee. Whenever a new XP is allocated, there's a rule checking if that particular employee is eligible for a new badge. If they are, the badge is allocated to them, and an email is sent to the entire company.

Email:

3. Displaying badges on the employee's profile. Of course, employees need to be able to showcase their latest badges. So, the previous HTML in the profile is updated with the available badge categories and with the ones already obtained.

And of course, we also have a report where each employee can display the main badge they are most proud of.

Gamification benefits and further development

In conclusion, the implementation of gamification with XP and badges in WEBCON BPS has been a tremendous success for Encorsa. It has not only made our processes more engaging and efficient but has also sparked a new level of enthusiasm among our employees.

As we look to the future, we are excited to announce our plans to introduce a wide range of additional badges and extend the scope of processes where XP can be collected. These forthcoming innovations will further enhance our gamification strategy, motivating our team to achieve new heights of productivity and engagement. Stay tuned for many more exciting developments that we have yet to imagine