Enterprise Gamification for Employee Engagement. Zoë Epstein Ithaca College

Transcription

1 Enterprise Gamification for Employee Engagement Zoë Epstein Ithaca College

2 Abstract Enterprise gamification, a popular trend in the business world right now, refers to the application of game mechanics to the workplace. Gamification practitioners believe that the goals of games to create motivation, retention, loyalty, and satisfaction are the same as the goals of employee engagement initiatives. Though a widely cited 2011 Gartner study predicts the widespread use of enterprise gamification, it is too early to conclude whether gamification will be a lasting new standard of workplace engagement. Therefore, the goal of this study is to increase understanding of how enterprise gamification is being implemented on a practical level in organizations. Keywords: Gamification, the application of game mechanics and game thinking to any non-game environment, like customer engagement, education, training, and business Enterprise Gamification, applying gamification elements like badges, levels, and leaderboards specifically to the workplace environment Employee Engagement, employee involvement, satisfaction with work, and emotional commitment to their organizations Game Mechanics, building blocks like leaderboards, badges, and progress bars, that can be used for gamification Overview of the Gamification Trend Gamification, commonly defined as the application of game mechanics to nonenvironments for increased engagement, was first coined in 2008 (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled & Nacke, 2011). The term, however, only began displaying results on Google searches in August Since then, the trend has skyrocketed. A widely cited 2011 Gartner study claims that 50% of companies will gamify their innovation processes by 2015 (Gartner, 2011). Many companies including Bunchball, Badgeville, BigDoor, Hoopla, and LevelEleven have been founded to help organizations gamify their processes. Bunchball, for example, is the industry leader in gamification. Among other things, the company offers a system called Nitro, which lets employers offer customized game mechanics like progress tracking, unique challenges, leaderboards, etc. ( Gamification solutions, 2012). Badgeville, another thriving gamification company, offers a portable gaming profile across multiple digital touch points, such as a company website, mobile applications, online communities, CRM systems, and support desk programs with matching analytics (Ross, 2012). These and other companies that make up the gamification industry collectively earned $200 million in 2011 and are expected to earn more than $2.8 billion by 2016 (Umbro, 2012). Jim Scullion, Bunchball CEO, makes the case for the gamification industry s growth: Whenever using an application effectively or performing an activity consistently to a high standard is crucial to business success, gamification can help. That s why CEOs should be interested. Gamification is an excellent way to effect and sustain change (Woods, 2012). The gamification trend has gained attention in many industries it already has a conference called Gamification Summit devoted to it and has been met with both

3 excitement and dread. It is important to note that while gamification itself is a new term, organizations began using game theory for training and customer engagement long before Though there are many different kinds of games with varying intentions, nearly all games share the goal of engaging players, motivating them to continue playing. Many game franchises also solicit player loyalty; because the players enjoy the games so much, they are loyal to and supportive of the franchise. These are the same goals that employers have for their customers and employees. Games have many other benefits that engage people as well. Games are considered by many to involve learning that engages the whole brain, and research indicates that active learning of this kind requires less effort (Weaver, 2011). A study published in Nature Neuroscience found that people retain information better when they have active control over how they take in information, something that games can provide (University of Illinois, 2010). Other research has found that many people enjoy playing games with others as a means of building social connections and camaraderie (Lazzaro, 2004). Many training programs capitalize on this engaging power of games to increase learner retention and engagement, making training more enjoyable or memorable for participants and more beneficial for their organizations. Gamification is also commonly used to engage customers. For example, campusfood.com, a website that lets college students order food, added Badgeville s badge system to their website to reward users for certain achievements, like the number of orders in a month. With enough points or badges, users earned discounts for their orders. After the company gamified their website, the number of users who returned two or more times increased by percent (MacMillion, 2011). Clearly, gamification can provide measurable benefits for organizations. No matter how gamification is used, game mechanics are essential to all gamification programs. Gamification.org defines game mechanics as constructs of rules and feedback loops intended to produce enjoyable gameplay building blocks that can be applied and combined to gamify any non-game context (Gamification of work, 2012). The range of game mechanics includes everything from achievements, virtual or physical representations of having accomplished something, to time limits, which make games more challenging, and therefore more engaging (Gamification of work, 2012). Goals and rewards in games would not exist if they could not be achieved, and knowing this encourages players to strive for those goals because they believe that they can succeed. Theoretically, employers can use game mechanics in the workplace to induce the same kind of self-motivation in employees. While gamification has traditionally been applied in training and customer engagement, there is a new trend towards applying it internally to the workplace: enterprise gamification. Enterprise gamification is gamification directed inward at an organization; employers use gamification for employees rather than customers. Within the gamification industry, enterprise gamification is a quickly-growing field. Using rewards, social incentives, and the engaging quality of games, the gamification industry believes, is a more powerful way to engage employees than standard monetary incentives alone. Scullion describes the reason for the shift towards enterprise gamification: It s about reputation and providing and creating a bigger knowledge base and people being recognized for their contributions to that knowledge base" (Liyakasa, 2012). In essence, enterprise gamification works with game mechanics in shared forums to help bring employees from all over the company together (Woods, 2012). Different groups or business units can have specific missions with specific rewards, motivating them and showing off their progress to others. While game mechanics are essential to enterprise gamification,

4 however, it is important to note that the real challenge is to design player-centric applications that focus on the motivations and rewards that truly engage players more fully (Gartner, 2012). At its core, gamification design involves tracking and analyzing a business process to create a benchmark, identifying the key actions for achieving these benchmarks, and using game mechanics to motivate and reward employees who complete those actions (Woods, 2012). While game mechanics are often seen as the face of gamification, the underlying engagement strategies are equally integral to the process. As gamification gains popularity, employers are increasingly gamifying everyday engagement processes in the workplace. Though many believe that is too early to say definitively whether gamification will become a new standard of workplace engagement, it is clear that, when implemented correctly, gamification can create behavior change within organizations. Research Methods Because it is an emerging field, few comprehensive works exist describing gamification processes. This paper draws from white papers, gamification resources like gamification.org, webinars and articles from gamification companies, articles from business and human resource publications, criticisms, and organizations using enterprise gamification to provide a comprehensive view of the relationship between employee engagement and enterprise gamification. Additionally, this paper draws on information from questionnaires to people at large companies who have experienced enterprise gamification firsthand. There is a chance that gamification industry sources are biased, but by applying criticisms where possible, this paper attempts to mitigate as much bias as possible. By synthesizing this information, this paper explores the current state of enterprise gamification. Engagement Trends and Gamification in the Workplace Employee engagement is commonly defined as the emotional commitment of employees to the organization and its goals. In today s economic climate, where average employee tenure is 4.4 years and job security is questionable, it is harder than ever for employers to engage employees ("Employee tenure summary," 2012). In the Human Resources field, however, most agree that employee engagement is crucial to organizational success. Studies have been done for years now quantifying how engagement helps organizations bottom lines. For example, companies with high engagement have been shown to have higher customer loyalty and sales, fewer quality errors, lower turnover and absenteeism, and higher overall revenue and shareholder returns (Kruse, 2012). Some common employee engagement initiatives include feedback and goal tracking, engagement surveys and listening to employee feedback, ensuring that employees are comfortable with the organizational culture, events like special lunches for recognition, and rewards programs (Clark, 2012). Other companies create internal social networks and learning management systems to increase engagement. For example, EMC created a social network called EMC One, which made employees feel better informed about company structure and strategy, more free to discuss any topic, and more comfortable with EMC s transparency (EMC, 2008, p.31). Because engagement initiatives and games both use elements like technology, feedback, and rewards, organizations have realized that the workplace can be well suited to enterprise gamification. For example, some organizations integrate gamification systems into their social networks, linking interactions with game mechanics to increase participation. Some

5 organizations using enterprise gamification have even started taking related employee achievements into account to give more comprehensive, quantifiable performance reviews (Stevens, 2012). Though the degree to which organizations apply gamification and the weight they give it vary, increasingly more organizations are deciding that when they want to create sustainable behavior change, gamification is the engagement solution. As they recognize how employee engagement initiatives already resemble games and develop enterprise gamification programs, employers are encountering both new engagement potential and new challenges. Other Potential for Gamified Employee Engagement Initiatives As previously discussed, the nature of games creates intrinsic rewards for players, and by applying game mechanics in a work setting, employers attempt to do the same. For example, whereas employees typically get feedback once or twice a year on their performance, players in a game get constant feedback. Repetitive tasks in the workplace are usually dull, but repetitive tasks in games have a clear goal and are usually enjoyable (Gamification of Work, 2012). Promotion in games is based on clear accomplishments rather than the often-confusing politics of advancement in the workplace. Like the workplace, "games work as rule-based learning systems, creating worlds in which players actively participate, use strategic thinking to make choices, solve complex problems, seek content knowledge, receive constant feedback, and consider the point of view of others" (Cohen, 2011). In addition to increasing engagement, enterprise gamification programs have the potential to improve evaluation and measurement. Because game mechanics like achievements, badges, points, and levels are quantifiable, it is easier for organizations to measure them and see how employees are focusing their attention (Ashraf, 2011). In the same way that gamification can increase retention in training programs, and in the same way that training games can quantify employee success with material in those programs, enterprise gamification has the potential to pinpoint employee engagement trends with more accuracy than ever. When considering these inherent advantages to linking game mechanics with engagement initiatives, Gartner s prediction that 50% of companies will gamify at least some innovation processes in the next few years becomes believable. Employers are increasingly recognizing the theoretical potential of enterprise gamification. Criticisms and Challenges Though the 2011 Gartner study anticipates such growth, a 2012 Gartner study anticipates that 80% of current gamified processes will fail by 2014 because of poor design (Gartner, 2012). While critics of gamification might see such high failure rates as a sign that gamification does not work, the gamification industry also shows little surprise at the numbers. Bunchball founder and CPO Rajat Paharia explains: Poor implementations are going to fail. That's not news; poor implementations of anything are going to fail" (Chapman, 2012). Paharia identifies two main reasons that gamification fails: misaligned incentives and a lack of value for employees. Critics of gamification offer many more reasons. Resistors to gamification claim that it is just another mystical panacea, the latest in a string of employee engagement trends that clutter up the workplace but improve little (Weaver, 2011). In addition to agreeing with Paharia s explanations of failure, critics argue that gamification is over-justified prioritizing extrinsic over intrinsic rewards, risks creating unintended behaviors, can be manipulative and addictive, involves bad game design, and generates unforeseen expenses. These objections have emerged mostly from the game design industry. Other concerns,

6 additionally, have emerged from non-game industries. These concerns include a fear about how gamification will be seen by older generations, how it impacts professionalism in the workplace, and how it might create negative competition. Over-Justification in the Gamification Industry Over-justification is a psychological effect in which people who are intrinsically motivated to do something lose that motivation when they are offered extrinsic rewards like trophies or money (Zichermann, 2011). The motivation that once came from interest and fun comes only from reliance on continuous rewards. Critics argue that most gamification programs use extrinsic rewards with game mechanics like badges and rewards systems, but that the engaging part of games is not the game mechanics. Rather, they argue, games are fun because players feel they are moving towards mastery; as players progress in games, the difficulty rises and accomplishments motivate them to continue (Deterding, 2012). While gamified programs may get employees to participate by collecting points, then, many also fail to produce the intrinsic motivation that makes employees actually want to keep going for the sake of the activity itself (Stevens, 2012). Employers will not gain the sustainable behavior change that they seek from enterprise gamification if their employees only emulate behaviors for temporary external rewards. Therefore, if gamification focuses on extrinsic rewards, the resulting product is likely to be shallow, with engagement loops to match (Zichermann, 2011). For example, if employees earn badges for something as simple as making a post on a discussion board, they might be motivated to earn those badges for a reward, but they might become so focused on the quantity of badges and rewards that they lose any interest in actually posting meaningful comments. They can easily cheat the system when the rewards are so simple to obtain (Della Costa, 2012). If the intrinsic value of earning badges is that employees can show off their achievements proudly to others, then badges should only be awarded for meaningful achievements (Deterding, 2010). The Risk of Unintended Behaviors Focusing on rewards and losing intrinsic motivation is just one possible unintended consequence for gamification programs. If organizations do not devote proper time and planning to developing gamification programs, they risk producing a myriad of behaviors that they do not want. Gamification designers themselves are aware of this risk. Bunchball founder and CPO Rajat Paharia claims that one of the main reasons gamification fails is misaligned incentives that can produce these unintended behaviors: If you reward your call center for shorter call times, you re likely going to come up with poor customer reviews (Chapman, 2012). Rewards must be meaningful, not just focused on quantifiability. For example, BMW tested a prototype game around 2010 that was designed to motivate people to save fuel as they drove. The game was effective. It was so effective, actually, that people took dangerous shortcuts to save fuel (Deterding, 2010). Participants were so focused on the rewards that they prioritized them over acting considerately towards their environments. Though BMW had no intention of getting people to act that way, there was nothing built into the game to create inherent motivators for participants to save gas. While the game was successful in creating the desired behavior of saving gas, that behavior manifested differently than intended. The Risks of Manipulation and Addiction

7 Studies on gambling and other games suggest that games are one of the most powerful source[s] of non-coercive influence in the world (Zichermann, 2011). The power of games to influence behavior, after all, is the reason gamification has become so popular. At the same time, however, critics argue that pushing employees into such an addictive program gives employers the power to manipulate those employees. As such, gamification programs should also establish firm ethical policies (Zichermann, 2011). Addiction can also cause unintended consequences and reflect a lack of intrinsic rewards. If an employee grows addicted to an enterprise gamification program, the program could become a distraction from work instead of an enhancement in spite of employers intentions. Returning to the discussion board example, if people earn points for posting answers to a question, they might focus on the addicting element of the gamification increasing the quantity of points and rewards rather than actually answering the question well. If employees help others for rewards rather than the sake of helping, the quality of the discussions will be shallow, rendering the points for helping meaningless and demeaning the value of the discussion board in the first place (Deterding, 2010). Also, employees will not gain the camaraderie that games have the potential to build if the gamification program concentrates on rewards over human connection. If there is nothing to gain from interacting, the opportunity to connect could just foster bad sportsmanship (Della Costa, 2012). Without a common goal between employers and employees, and without a sense of community, employees will have little to gain (Della Costa, 2012). With common goals and community, however, there is potential for connection. Critics also accuse the gamification industry as a whole of manipulation. It has long been argued that programs that use rewards to change people s behavior are ineffective over the long run (Juul, 2011). This aligns with much of the criticism of gamification. While people respond initially to the rewards, they lack the motivation to maintain the new behavior. The gamification industry, however, markets its services as a method of creating sustainable behavior change. This and many other criticisms of gamification design have arisen from the game design community. Game Design vs. Gamification Design In the game industry right now, there is a class divide. The low culture is currently social games, gamification and (maybe) mobile games versus the high-culture of more hardcore games (Radoff, 2011). And there is a genuine difference in these areas. While gamification uses game mechanics, it is not actually creating games. Of course, the boundary between game and artifact with game elements can often be blurry (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled & Nacke, 2011). Neither side of the gamification debate has a clear consensus on whether including game elements in something makes it a game. It is often subjective depending on the attitudes of the people in the program and whether they interact with it as a game (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled & Nacke, 2011). Regardless, some game designers argue that when the gamification industry removes game mechanics from game environments, the benefits to the player collapse. Enterprise gamification, after all, typically lacks play (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled & Nacke, 2011). Without the element of play that creates intrinsic motivators, gamified programs remove the feeling of freedom that people associate with games (Deterding, 2010). This is true particularly if employees are required to participate. Rather than promoting creativity as games do, critics believe gamification programs turn games into work rather than life into play (Deterding,

8 2010). Fun and games are easy ways to change behavior, but gamification programs are not necessarily fun. On an even deeper level, some critics dispute the gamification industry s treatment of game mechanics. For example, gamification companies sometimes represent badges as a way to reward employees (Deterding, 2010). The most commonly used game mechanics in gamification include badges, points, progress bars, and leaderboards. Critics protest that these mechanics are forms of feedback within the game rather than rewards in and of themselves (Deterding, 2010). These progress trackers in regular games are just feedback for actual achievements. They merely represent the intrinsic reward of completing a challenge or moving closer to mastery. In games as in life, regular positive feedback makes people feel good. In gamification programs, however, critics believe that few actual achievements are represented, and that the game mechanics are merely supposed use feedback to make employees feel positive about things their employers want them to do, regardless of value to the employee (Juul, 2011). Additionally, critics believe that most gamification companies use the same mechanics no matter what. Rather than customizing the mechanics to the situation, they treat the same package of mechanics as an easy fix (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled & Nacke, 2011). But not all game aspects appeal to all people; women, for example, tend to prefer non-competitive games (Deterding, 2010). As gamification s popularity increases, however, the gamification industry is searching for ways to expedite the process. Bunchball and Badgeville even have out-of-the-box gamification programs now, involving less design, planning, and cost than creating a gamification infrastructure from scratch. Expenses There are less obvious costs to organizations, beyond the cost of planning and implementing gamification programs. As employees continue earning rewards, organizations have to supply them, and offer increasingly more and better rewards (Zichermann, 2011). Organizations must pay employees to manage the communities and digital touch-points that have been gamified, as well as employees to design more challenges and visuals for the programs. Legal and compliance costs should also be taken into account (Zichermann, 2011). Employee Receptiveness across Generations In the age of social gaming, Millennials already show a proclivity toward using gaming in their everyday lives (Deloitte, 2012). Generation Y makes up 25% of the workforce, so there is a logical motivator for organizations to use gamification to appeal to this generation (Bunchball, 2012). Accordingly, many gamification skeptics outside of the game industry fear that older generations who did not grow up online will not respond well to gamification programs in the workplace. 58% of social gamers, however, are over 40 years old ("Infographic: Social Gaming," 2012). Studies indicate that the elements of games that engage users are intergenerational" (Stevens, 2012). The engaging aspects of game mechanics appeal to human psychology regardless of generation. Professionalism Others outside the game industry fear that gamification will reduce seriousness in the workplace. Certainly, trivializing the game mechanics or applying gamification without a clear purpose would prevent employees from taking it seriously. While fun, however, games do not have to be unserious. Using games in training, after all, is an established process that in no way

9 reduces the seriousness or professionalism of that training. How any new engagement initiative or program is received depends on how it is presented. Gamification company Hoopla advises that gamification programs must be presented professionally if employers actually want to motivate employees to play (Hoopla, 2012). In addition to professional presentation, of course, organizations must also consider the design concepts already discussed, such as intrinsic motivation and aligned incentives, to create a program that actually engages employees. Gamification programs are not necessarily games, anyway; the lack of play makes them much more serious from the outset. As long as employers apply gamification with purpose instead of arbitrarily, enterprise gamification does not have to be unprofessional. Negative Competition Others outside of the game industry fear that quantifiable achievements will lead to competition rather than cooperation, distracting employees from the actual meaning of their actions and becoming a mere numbers game. Again, whether this happens depends on how enterprise gamification is applied. Successful enterprise gamification can motivate individuals, but is usually part of a group system, allowing people to complete both against themselves i.e., striving for their personal best and their peers (Stevens, 2012). For example, Santa Clarabased company LiveOps used enterprise gamification to create unity for the hundreds of independent contractors that work from home for its call centers (Stevens, 2012). Because each company that LiveOps works for has its own standards and specifications, employees faced uncertainty about the importance of different tasks. To solve this problem, LiveOps worked with Bunchball to create a system that would issue virtual rewards for achieving certain tasks, allowing employees to see the hierarchy of importance for those tasks and feel accomplished when they achieved them. It is important to note that none of these criticisms or concerns claim that games cannot create behavior change. None of them deny the power of games; there is too much evidence to the contrary. What they do criticize, quite validly, is that much of the gamification industry in its current state does not reach its full potential. Gartner s prediction that 80% of gamification initiatives will fail by 2014 is not surprising in light of the potential for unintended behaviors, addiction, lack of intrinsic rewards, or misapplication of gamification initiatives. It is quite possible that to truly tap into the engaging power of games, correctly and with careful design, many businesses would actually have to change their core operations instead of merely applying gamification like a band-aid to quickly fix a problem (Bogost, 2011). New initiatives in the workplace will inevitably face challenges, but that is no reason to avoid them, especially when they have the potential to create real improvements in employee engagement in the workplace. While many gamified initiatives are anticipated to fail, there are also gamification programs that show signs of success. Current Examples of Enterprise Gamification Despite critics, the gamification industry has plenty of business, and many big-name companies have or are in the early stages of implementing enterprise gamification. LiveOps, discussed earlier, is one example. Other companies like EMC, SAP, Microsoft, Deloitte, Google, Salesforce.com, Omnicare, and All State are in the early stages of implementing enterprise gamification programs. A few of these programs are highlighted in this section.

10 EMC RAMP EMC has implemented enterprise gamification through the creation of RAMP: the Recognition, Award, and Motivation Program. This program integrates Badgeville s system with EMC s Community Network to recognize individual participation in the community (Brender, 2012b). Employees get points for every interaction, gain levels for continuous participation, earn badges, and complete missions for unique rewards. Top employee contributors will be able to earn exclusive invitations to private events, first access to beta content, even raffles for prizes (Brender, 2012a). Only non-employee participants like customers and partners are eligible for primary rewards at this time. As the program is new, developers are still creating missions and deciding on ways to reward customers and employees, as well as rolling out parts of the program, meaning that the full range of RAMP s plans have not been revealed. EMC, however, appears to have invested in this program for the long term, having already secured marketing and budgeted for RAMP for years in advance (Brender, 2012a). RAMP is clearly offering extrinsic rewards for participation, and doing it for the simple kinds of behaviors that critics warn do not actually represent worthwhile achievements. Not all point-generating activities appear meaningless, however, as users can earn points if their replies to questions are marked as correct answers, or if other users mark comments as helpful (See Appendix A). Though earning points for a response regardless of content might not create meaningful engagement, then, EMC is at least trying to reward behaviors that should also create intrinsic rewards, and provide real value to the company. The company defines RAMP s goal as to recognize each community member for their contribution to the community and to award them for their expertise (Brender, 2012). Rewarding answers that employees value seems like one way to award them for expertise. And the initial engagement from adding game mechanics is succeeding. Since the launch, there has been a 21% increase in overall activity in the community network, from activities like replying to questions, creating documents, and watching videos ( EMC s RAMP energizes, 2012). Because EMC only just launched RAMP in 2012, and because the company is still unveiling parts of the program, however, it is too early to measure whether this initial engagement will translate into sustainable behavior change in the long run. SAP Community Network The SAP Community Network (SCN) also uses gamification, and has used game elements since 2006 ( SAP Community Network, 2011). They offer many of the same features as RAMP, including points, badges, and leaderboards. The system also provides employee rankings that are sometimes even used in performance evaluations ( SAP Community Network, 2011). Though SAP cannot yet offer specific engagement numbers for the SCN, it claims that qualitative data leans in its favor. Reports indicate that SCN points on résumés earn preferential treatment from hiring managers ( SAP Community Network, 2011). This trend suggests that employees value the metrics from the SCN, and therefore that users are providing actual value rather than cheating the system to earn points. The SCN also appears to offer some level of intrinsic value; employees used to earn T-shirts for achievements, but decided a few years ago to donate their rewards points to charity instead ( SAP Community Network, 2011). There are two possible explanations for this behavior; first that employees just did not like the shirts, and second that the intrinsic rewards of using the SCN are more valuable to users than the rewards.

11 SAP Vampire Hunt SAP has many more gamification programs. For example, Vampire Hunt is a mobile app that allows colleagues to sign up to go on hunts for energy-draining devices in specified locations ( SAP Carbon Impact Award, 2011). Participants get points for each kwh saved, and the company saves money and electricity. The program is also an opportunity to network with colleagues ( SAP Carbon Impact Award, 2011). Employees get points and rewards in addition to the intrinsic rewards of helping the environment and bonding with colleagues. A program like this is a simpler application of enterprise gamification. This is also an example of how to apply gamification effectively to solve a specific problem, providing value to both the employees and the organization. Slalom Consulting When Slalom Consulting implemented an enterprise gamification program, it did so to unite offices located all over the country. Its solution was to create a mobile application to help employees learn each other s names and faces, including points and leaderboards to motivate participation (Korolov, 2012). Initially, the program failed. Only about 5% of employees cared about the game mechanics, leaving most employees uninterested in the program (Korolov, 2012). This lack of success represents the results of focusing on extrinsic rewards. If organizations do not take the time to find a way to engage employees on deeper levels, gamification likely won t succeed. In response to low engagement, the company organized participants into teams. After they did so, participation rose to 90% and face and name recognition rates rose to 89% accuracy (Korolov, 2012). By recognizing how the team element could motivate employees to participate, to do well for their teams, Slalom Consulting was able to save its gamification program. Salesforce.com Bunchball has created an app that can be used with Salesforce.com to gamify the website: Nitro for Salesforce. The program displays a sidebar featuring a progress bar, a team leaderboard, and a featured challenge (Patrizi, 2011). There are also profile pages with user points, chatter newsfeeds, featured challenges, trophies, and progress bars. Team standings display which teams are leading in points and challenges. In terms of rewards, the program offers either real life or virtual rewards selected by employees (Patrizi, 2011). As in the Slalom Consulting example, this gamification program uses team groupings to motivate employees towards participation, while also offering extrinsic rewards as additional motivators. As an out-of-the-box Bunchball program, Nitro for Salesforce comes with pre-configured challenges and the ability to customize them (Patrizi, 2011). This is the sort of program that some critics object to, an out-of-the-box program that saves organizations the cost of developing a gamification program from scratch, but also risks not taking the unique needs and motivations of individual organizations into account. The program was released in December 2011 and costs $20 per user per month after a three 30-day trial (Nitro for salesforce). Microsoft Communicate Hope Microsoft s Communicate Hope gamification program is just one of many internal productivity games the company has implemented. To test and improve its Office Communicator (Lync) program, Microsoft sought user feedback and bug identification (Jacobs, 2011). The

12 program linked leaderboards to charities, with Microsoft s contributions to those charities tied to game results. On the other end of the testing process, the program rewarded the test team for responding quickly to feedback instead of prioritizing recording and fixing bugs (Jacobs, 2011). Microsoft reported 16 times more feedback from people playing the game than those not playing the game (Jacobs, 2011). Like SAP Vampire Hunt and Slalom Consulting, this program is a good example of how gamification can target a very specific problem and incentivize employees to help solve it. Employees were not offered rewards as compensation for their participation, but were still motivated to participate and help the company. Ross Smith, Microsoft Director of Test and creator of Communicate Hope, explains that good game design trumps prizes in productivity games (Jacobs, 2011). Smith believes that instead of designing programs that reward people for their day-to-day activities, successful programs motivate participants with opportunities for organizational citizenship. As in all enterprise gamification programs, success comes down to how organizations motivate employees to want to participate. Questionnaire Findings Individuals who responded to the enterprise gamification questionnaire reported that either they did not formally define gamification, or that they used the standard definition of game mechanics in non-game environments. Additionally, one respondent emphasized that designing gamification programs did not mean creating games. This is important in light of many of the criticisms of gamification from the game design industry. While gamification design involves game mechanics, it does not involve the play aspect of games, and therefore should not be looked at from the perspective of game design. Respondents reported that they had implemented gamification programs in the areas of community networks, an innovation event where employees vote on the best ideas to earn funding for implementation, gamification programs to increase engagement at conferences, a belting program that allows employees to rise in rank reflecting their expertise and earn money, and badge systems to recognize achievements. When asked how their organizations developed gamification programs, respondents expressed both that they used design thinking and that they were uncertain of the precise process. Respondents also reported on how employees responded to gamification programs. For different programs at different companies, employees were initially skeptical but liked the programs once they realized that they would help solve problems, liked programs from the outset, or responded positively but did not engage much in programs. One respondent observed that employees do not know that programs are considered gamification programs, as their organization does not market the programs that way. Removing the term gamification from the equation is a way for organizations to implement programs without the sometimes-controversial association with games. People sometimes respond badly to the idea of games in the workplace. In terms of metrics, respondents either do not measure engagement results or measure them, but do not have solid results available yet. The lack of concrete data indicates that it is too early to decide whether gamification programs will succeed; many are still too new to provide long-term results. Despite this lack of concrete data, all respondents anticipate that their organizations will maintain current gamification programs and continue developing new ones. One respondent explained that his organization s gamification programs had been updated into new versions already, an indication that they have survived. These responses reflect Gartner s prediction of

13 gamification growth in all industries. The question of gamification s expansion is much easier to answer than the question of whether it is being used in a way that creates sustainable behavior change. Because many gamification programs still lack solid data, it is difficult to anticipate whether their short-term success will translate into long-term success. Recommendations While the landscape of enterprise gamification has not settled into a final form yet, some things are clear. Gamification is not a panacea for employee engagement challenges; it must be applied in the right context and as a long-term strategy with a careful design process. The biggest apparent factor in whether gamification programs will succeed is whether gamification designers are able to engage employees on intrinsic levels, motivating them with something beyond game mechanics that merely recognize basic participation. Rather than gamifying everyday processes or basic interactions, gamification programs work best when they give employees a feeling of increasing mastery or organizational citizenship. Mechanics for basic actions alone are not enough; they must reflect real achievement. Enterprise gamification always includes a social element, and that social element often becomes a key motivator that means much more to employees than basic rewards. That social element is likely why SAP employees voted to donate to charity rather than earn T-shirts, why Microsoft Communicate Hope linked points to charity rather than rewards, and why Slalom Consulting was able to drastically increase participation in its recognition program by organizing employees into teams. Employees should want to participate rather than be forced to, or be encouraged to by extrinsic rewards alone. It is important that organizations do not forget to consider how individual employee groups will respond to different game mechanics. Not everyone responds to competition in the same way. It is clear, however, that enterprise gamification done ideally really does have the power to increase engagement, particularly when applied to specific problems where game elements already exist. Programs by companies like LiveOps, SAP, and Microsoft indicate such. Much of the criticism of gamification comes from the game design industry, which treats gamification as a lower-class category that does not use proper game design. When reviewing criticisms, it is important to note that gamification is to games as jingles are to music (Zichermann, 2011). Gamification lacks the element of play that is essential to all game design, though it shares some of the core game mechanics. Because it is not about play, the freedom that games provide, gamification must weigh different factors for motivating participants. Again, how programs motivate employees is the biggest indicator of success. Out-of-the-box gamification programs are at a disadvantage to programs designed from scratch precisely because they do not involve a design process customized to the unique motivators of each organization that uses them. While these programs lower costs and make gamification more accessible, then, they also risk lower success rates. No data are yet available to indicate how out-of-the box programs compare to programs designed from scratch. One of the biggest challenges to the current gamification industry is that because it is still new, few long-term data are available to indicate whether the initial engagement and behavior change that gamification provides is sustainable. It is not surprising, then, when gamification company Hoopla advises that gamification is best used to create new behavior patterns, rather than to sustain them (Hoopla, 2012). In its current state, the gamification industry is still developing techniques to engage employees in sustainable ways. That is no reason, however, to suggest that they will not be able to do so in the future. The potential appears to be there. Also,

14 because gamification uses game mechanics that are designed specifically to measure engagement, it is a kind of employee engagement initiative that is easier to measure than most initiatives. Going forward, it is essential that gamification programs evaluate their impact on both short and long-term engagement. Considering Gartner s prediction that gamification will continue to grow, and its prediction that 80% of current gamification programs will fail by 2014 because of poor design, the question of whether gamification is a trend or a new standard of workplace engagement is still unanswered. Jesse Schell, professor of entertainment technology and game design at Carnegie Mellon University puts it well: "In ways it is a fad -- adding points and badges in tacky ways, looking at 'gamification' as an easy way to make boring things seem interesting -- that is a fad (Della Costa, 2012). Both sides of the gamification debate agree that poorly designed gamification is a consequence of gamification s increasing popularity that is done for appearances rather than with real benefits to organizations. As Schell predicts, however, the idea of designing business processes so that those who engage in them find them more intrinsically rewarding -- that is a long term trend (Della Costa, 2012). Though many gamification programs are anticipated to fail, enterprise gamification programs that actually motivate and engage employees on intrinsic levels show no signs of decline. It is still too early to conclude to what degree enterprise gamification will survive, but it appears that while many programs will fail, other programs have the potential for long-term success. Organizations have found that by using enterprise gamification in their employee engagement initiatives, they can increase employee motivation, retention, loyalty, and satisfaction, raising their bottom lines and simultaneously making work more enjoyable for many.

15 Appendix A (Brender, 2012)

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