gamification

Employee Engagement and Gamification

January 19, 2016 by David Zinger Leave a Comment

Winnipeg Lunch and Learn, March 15, 2016 in conjunction with MCCA

Managers face serious tasks, problems, and challenges. They require a fully
engaged workforce, yet Gallup has revealed that engagement levels may be
as low as 30 percent around the globe. Gamification is rapidly being
integrated into our contemporary ways of working, along with employee
engagement and social media. Join David Zinger on March 15, 2016 at MCCA’s Lunch and Learn to find out how gamification plays into employee engagement!

Registration Options:

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To read David Zinger’s cover article for ASTD on gamification for managers click this link: A Primer on Gamification for Managers

David Zinger is an employee engagement expert and speaker who believes that gamification helps us a lot with the inevitable progress and setback experiences at work.

Employee Engagement Gamification For Work and Well-being Made Simple

November 13, 2014 by David Zinger 1 Comment

Are you game for a simple approach to improve engagement with work and well-being? 10 Lessons for Gamification.

Based on David Zinger’s personal experience this post offers you a simple and lean approach to using gamification for engagement. Although it is an experiment with just one person it offers some tangible evidence of how gamification can improve both work and well-being and how an experiment can help us improve the process of gamification. The post also offers you a glimpse into gamification based on a real experience and offers you a pathway to gamification that can be conducted at almost zero cost and does not require a training course to implement.

Reading Time: 4 minutes and 55 seconds

At times, I have struggled to start major projects. At times, I find that either my work or well-being begins to wane. At times, I wonder what I have accomplished. At times, I wonder if drudgery (as I define it) can be used to enhance well-being. At times, I wonder if my childhood love of pinball has any relevance for my work and well-being. This lead me to the conclusion that the time was right to personally experiment with the gamification of work and well-being. I believe we should never ask anyone to do what we are not prepared to do ourselves and I know I had advocated for the place of gamification in work and well-being.

It is interesting to me that although I am self-employed I can be disengaged. We often fail to see the disengagement of the self-employed when we believe organizations are responsible for engagement. There were also times that I let my efforts towards personal well-being languish. I needed some structural help with my work and well-being and decided that the gamification of these two key elements of my life could be helpful. I have been amazed at just how helpful this has been.

I am more productive.
I have eliminated most procrastination around big projects.
I enjoy my work more.
I found well-being in doing housework and Costco shopping, two activities I previously loathed.
I have triggered additional social contribution/donations.

Overall, I learned that games are so much more than just a trivial pursuit.

During 2014, I have been conducting a one year experiment on the gamification of work and well-being. In fact, some of the work goes back to 2012 with an elaborate approach to planning, monitoring, and measuring my work and well-being. Although many people play games as diversions from work I was more interested in applying the principle of games to be help me immerse more fully into both my work and well-being.

I continue to use a gamified approach to my work and well-being but I have greatly simplified the process and procedures.

Two factors were at play in the evolutionary simplicity. The first was my overall approach to employee engagement and work being based on the principles of: small, simple, significant, sustainable, and strategic. I must practice what I teach. I realized that my game was too elaborate and time consuming and needed to be simpler and smaller to be sustainable.

I believe that in our “crazybusy” lives that small is the new significant. Jane McGonigal, one of the world’s leading experts on gamification, states that, overall, games have four traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation. Everything else is extra.

The second influence was the publication of my May cover story for ASTD’s Training and Development Magazine: Game On: A Primer on Gamification for Managers. In that article I shared a gamification approach used by Charles M Schwab from over 100 years ago (gamification is a lot older and simpler than many people think!)

Charles M. Schwab, the American steel magnate, in the early 1900s wrote about the practice of gamification in Succeeding With What You Have. He recounted the following story.

Schwab was concerned about production in one of his steel mills and asked the day foreman for the production number, or “heats” produced, by the day shift. It was six, so Schwab grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote a large number six on the floor. The night shift saw the number and asked about the meaning of it. Upon hearing that Schwab had put down six for the productivity of the day shift, the night shift competed hard and, based on their productivity, they erased the number before morning and put down seven.

The day shift, getting into the “game,” completed 10 heats and very quickly this mill, formerly the poorest producer, was turning out more than any other mill in the plant. With minimal application of a goal, rules, feedback system, and voluntary participation, the “game” greatly enhanced the productivity of this workforce more than a century ago. Who would have thought that Schwab was an early work-gamification designer even if he never used the word?

I realized how lean and simple gamification could really be. Just because there are lots of bells and whistles or huge epic massive multi-player online quests does not mean you need these things to have a good game. Gamification for work and well-being must be designed with the purpose you have in mind. Here were my 6 purposes:

to bring a concrete daily focus to work and well-being
to improve and get better with both my work and well-being
to approach my work and well-being from a playful perspective and blur the lines between work and play
to apply gamification to monitor and heighten the experience of progress while diminishing the disengagement of setbacks
to ensure engaged work and well-being was triggered multiple times every day
to have my results be bigger than myself by triggering a social contribution based on points accumulated through play

It was time for me to remove and reduce the extraneous bells and whistles in my game and thereby strengthen its focus, power, and purpose. The next two images show the evolution of the game from what it was to what it is. A short description about the game is above each image.

Version 1: This is the initial version of the game. The game board was a fresh PowerPoint slide created each day. It had lots of colors and moving parts. There were goals, points, bonus points, and a hive like structure. I filled in the hive cells with every 24 minutes of work or wellbeing once achieved (yellow for work and green for well-being). I thought it might make a nice mobile app but I began to wonder if it could not be a lot simpler. In addition, the Pomodoro technique that I discovered the third year into my experiment has already built apps that can be used for this purpose. Sometimes I seemed to be spending more time on the game dynamics than time on meaningful work and well-being.

Version 2: Below is a scanned page from my current gamification of work and well-being. In some ways, it hardly looks like a game at all yet it elegantly fulfills my 6 purposes. The game board is a physical notebook, completed by hand and and I experienced a power and trigger in having a very tangible game book that I can carry around. I reduced the time periods of work and well-being from 24 minutes to 15 minute increments – this makes it easier to start each period, knowing I only have to go for 15 minutes (I have learned how much can be done with just 15 minutes — it still amazes me). I also experienced how refreshing a nap of just 15 minutes could be. Each 15 minute period awards 15 points which translates to a social donation of one cent a point. Yes, this is not a large amount of money but I found if the amount was 10 cents a point it did not work as well as one cent a point. For example, on Thursday October 30 I donated $100.40 to the Red Cross to support Ebola work based on work and well-being points accumulated over the past two months.

Sample Page from Work and Well-being Gamification Experiment

Here are 10 lessons learned from a year a gamification. I trust these could be helpful to you if you are thinking of gamifying your work or well-being:

Just start, because in the starting the learning begins
Games don’t have to be complex to be powerful
Games can be more than escape, they can immerse you into your own work and well-being
Experience is still one of the greatest teachers and don’t be afraid to change or modify things as you go along
Always think about the purpose or the intent of the game and don’t let the game divert you from your purpose
Never overlook the power of elegant simplicity
Take ownership of your game design because you will then get exactly what you want and need
Games can be a terrific mechanism to help us navigate through setbacks and progress or our real life game of snakes and ladders
Gamification can contribute to social responsibility and contribution
My gamification was used to create this post. It took seven 15-minute periods and it will contribute $1.05 towards a social contribution.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert who believes we must practice what we teach. His love of pinball at sixteen is paying dividends in his gamification of work and well-being at 60.

Employee Engagement: How to use gamification to climb Mount Everest (almost).

February 27, 2014 by David Zinger 3 Comments

Being game for work and wellbeing

(Reading time 4 minutes and 30 seconds)

I have themed 2014 as a year of points. I am further extending my work on using the principles and practices of gamification for work and wellbeing. In a future post, I will provide an update of the daily game board I use to plan and track my time and performance to enhance work and wellbeing.

For this post I want to outline a three week gamification of fitness. The Winnipeg Winter Club where I workout has a mean looking machine called Jacob’s Ladder. It is like a 40 degree angled treadmill with the tread being replaced by ladder rungs. It is exhausting and you feel a bit like Sisyphus as you climb a ladder and get nowhere, but it is a great workout. The first time I tried the ladder back in January I could only do a couple of minutes before being fatigued.

For the month of February my fitness club challenged members to climb 29, 029 feet, or the equivalent of the elevation of Mount Everest on Jacob’s Ladder. I decided this was a game, even at fifty-nine years of age, I wanted to play. I knew to be successful I needed to gamify the process and was ultimately successful in taking just twenty days from the time I started to making it to the summit.

Here was how I approached the task based on gamification ideas and practices:

Compelling narrative. I was not climbing a ladder I was participating in an adventure to get to the top of Everest. A strong compelling narrative often keeps people glued to a movie or a game. In this case, I kept imaging I was getting to the top of Everest. I wasn’t delusional but it made climbing the steps more fun.

Being social. I didn’t climb with someone else but my daughter, Katharine, was my fitness buddy in another challenge at the club. Her support and knowing I was scoring points for us as a team was very helpful. I used almost daily updates on social media to report on my progress to make myself accountable to people who follow me and to gather energy and encouragement from their support. And of course, I kept broadcasting my success to my wife and sons.

Making progress. Progress is engaging while setback are disengaging. I did not wait until I arrived at the “summit” to celebrate. I printed out a Wikipedia list of all the mountain peaks around the world so I had the progress of reaching the elevation of over 1000 peaks along the way. Also I scored 10 points for a bigger fitness competition each day I completed ten or more minutes on the ladder.

Meaningful. This game was meaningful to me. For gamification to work and be sustainable the game must be meaningful to the player. Virtually climbing Mount Everest would not be either compelling or meaningful to many people but as someone who lived their whole life on the prairies it had always been a whimsical desire to climb the world’s tallest peak. Given everything else in my life this was about as close as I was going to get to achieving that desire.

Novelty. From one perspective I was just climbing a ladder to nowhere and that can be very fatiguing and boring. I enhanced novelty in the game by working at different paces and with different lengths of climbing. One day I climbed for 28 minutes and covered 1816 feet — this climb was the equivalent of climbing the CN Tower in Toronto (it must have been a foggy day as the view on Jacob’s Ladder never seemed to actually change).

Keeping track. I used a notebook to keep track of time, steps, and speed. Monitoring the climb with the different numbers derived was motivating while keeping me on track and preventing a fitness goal derailment.

Celebrate. I did celebrate success of the goal achieved by opening a small bottle of bubbly champagne and toasting the feat with Jeff, the fitness director, in a couple of small paper cone cups. We should always make time to celebrate progress as this helps to mentally install all the benefits of our accomplishments.

Benefits beyond the game. I like games that are immersions rather than diversions. By this I mean the game has real world benefits and is not merely a distraction from work and life. This game increased my fitness, helped me shed about 10 pounds, and feel more energized each day.

The game as a booster rather than an end in itself. Sometimes the trouble with gamification is that it begins to lose its impact over time. Now that I was successful will this mean I stop using the ladder and let my fitness entropy to previous levels. To overcome this I am now planning to climb the equivalent of the 7 summits of the world over the next year. It won’t be as intensive as the last month but it will make the progress and fitness sustainable over a long period of time. As we begin to approach the end of a helpful and positive gamification of work or wellbeing it is quite helpful to ask ourselves: what come’s next? Just because the game ended doesn’t mean the practice and benefits should also end.

Are you game? How can you integrate the practices outline above into your own work and wellbeing to foster greater engagement in achieving a result that matters to you or your work group?

Many small steps are one giant step. In summary it was 29,029 small steps for David and one giant step for the application of gamification to better work and wellbeing.

David Zinger is a Canadian employee engagement speaker and expert who believes in the benefits of gamification as a powerful tool for greater engagement.

Employee Engagement Friday Factoid #22: The Future of Gamification

March 8, 2013 by David Zinger 4 Comments

Are you game?

In a survey by Pew Research Center, 53% of people surveyed said that, by 2020, the use of gamification will be widespread, while 42% predicted that, by 2020, gamification will not evolve to be a larger trend except in specific realms. Gamification 2020: What Is the Future of Gamification?

Commentary

There is a strong connection between employee engagement and gamification. My friend, Siddhesh Bhobe from Persistent and the CEO of eMee showed me a fine demonstration of this in Pune, India two weeks ago.

Are you using gamification where you work? Do you see yourself using gamification to increase engagement? I go with the 52% who think gamification will be widespread as the technology and design improves. Games are engaging: You only have to fly overseas and walk up down an airplane aisle on an eight hour flight to see how many people are playing games on their computers, tablets, and smartphones to recognize how pervasive gamification is becoming.

David Zinger is a global employee engagement expert who is pathetic with Angry Birds but who uses gamification to enhance and enliven his own work and wellbeing.

Number 3 – Gamification and Employee Engagement (Five Zingers From 2012)

December 20, 2012 by David Zinger 1 Comment

Number 3 of the top 5 blog posts from David Zinger 2012

A personal quest to improve work and well-being through the principles of engagement and gamification

Buzz for the 2012 Experiment. I have been playing with engagement, gamification, work, and well-being this year. I still have 3 months to go but I thought I would let readers know about the success I have been experiencing by creating a low tech game to increase my work accomplishment and enhance my overall well-being. Of course, given my love for the ways honeybees work it is based on the visual of honeycomb construction.

24 minute cells. One mechanism I am using to enhance my thinking, work, and well-being is to chunk my work or well-being periods into 24 minute cells. I find that I can sustain better engagement and thinking, there is a quick end in sight, I gather energy by shifting to other tasks with the next 24 minutes, and I experience an engaging sense of progress. It is amazing what you can think of and accomplish in 24 minutes, and using multiple 24 minute blocks each day builds a strong sustained experience of accomplishment and progress.

I have gone game for better thinking, work, and well-being. I have made a game out of my work and well-being. Each 24 minute cell completed is worth 10 points. I work to achieve 400 points each week. There are 100 bonus points available each week to turbocharge my work or well-being on challenging tasks. At the start of the day I determine my 3 daily goals and put the task I will work on in at least 6 cells. As each 24 minute period is completed I color the cell yellow for work and green for well-being.

Work and well-being ratios. My overall ratio of work to well-being is 2 cells of work for 1 cell of well-being from Monday to Friday. On the weekend I reverse this to 2 cells of well-being for 1 cell of work. The collected points at the end of specific period of time (often 2 or 3 months) is redeemed by me to make a charitable donation so that the game goes beyond myself and additional meaning is attached to the completion of each cell.

Game platform. The platform for the game is very simple, I use a PowerPoint slide for each day and I have a weekly slide to set goals for the week and monitor progress from the previous week. At the end of the year or early in 2013 I will offer greater detail on how to construct and play this game to enhance your work and well-being while also collecting points to trigger charitable donations.

Here is a screen shot of one slide from September 17, 2012:

David Zinger is a global employee engagement expert who applied principles of engagement and games to enhance his personal work and well-being.