COVER STORY I

The
GAME is on
Gamification is the hottest trend this season to redefine workplace
dynamics. Time will tell whether it will leave an indelible
impression or fade away into oblivion like yet another
'flavour of the month'? Meanwhile play on and
create magic for your organization!
I BY SHAILJA KAUSHIK

here is nothing new about the alliance

T between games and the business world.

Whether it is about closing business deals
on the golf course, paintball for
teambuilding, treasure-hunt for fun-at-work or
role-playing for training and hiring; companies have
a fascination for leveraging this lighter aspect of
human's psycho-social personality to drive
organizational results. Latest in the line is enterprise
gamification for achieving the businesses' bottom-
line. Gamifying consumer experience is paying-off
lucrative dividends to the consumer marketing
function through greater customer engagement,
brand loyalty and access to consumer data - all
translating into improved sales revenue. And now,
it's the turn of HR to benefit from the potential of
this emerging trend.
While technology and globalization are levelling
the field, companies have realized that it is the
motivated workforce that will give an edge over
the competition. Vibrant, ultra-connected and
competitive are the three words that describe the
persona of the current workforce, which seeks
challenge in their work and are driven by high self-
esteem. These lyrics of Generation Gaming song
by Dan Bull sums up the attitude of GenY,
Monopoly was not for me; chess made me stressed
out - so the only way I could get down was with
pocket electronics and bleeps. If you play Angry

18 I November 2013 www.humancapitalonline.com


Birds or Farmville, you'll know the immense
gratification that comes by reaching the next
expert level, getting a badge or seeing your name
on the leaderboard. This is exactly what gamifying
HR means - applying the games principles and
elements of rewards, badges, competition and
cooperation, to the various facets of talent
acquisition and management. This need-of-the-
hour has been very succinctly put by Sriram
Rajagopal, Vice President, Human Resources,
Cognizant, "This new-age approach is highly
effective in enabling better and faster assimilation
of our associates, most of whom belong to the
millennial generation that responds best to gaming
elements and prefers virtual and collaborative
ways of working."
Gamifying employee lifecycle
Though a popular trend in the West, it is now fast
gaining admirers among Indian HR practitioners.
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I COVER STORY
HCL Technologies, Cognizant, L'Oreal, Marriott,
Capgemini and Deloitte are among the pioneers
in gamifying the various processes of employee
lifecycle to bring a behavioural change in their
workforce, resulting in fortifying the contribution
of HR to their overall business performance.
HCL Technologies has perfectly blended the
game mechanics to build a robust gamified
platform for the new hire on-boarding process.
The new joiners, post-acceptance of offer letters
are sent an invitation mailer with a URL, 15 days
prior to their date of joining, to play the game.
This game has five stages of employee growth,
employee work profile, innovation @HCL, work-
life balance and HCL's culture of intrapreneurship.
Participants have to complete each step in a
sequential manner; completion of each stage is
linked to a reward, either a tangible gift or an
intangible badge. A certificate of appreciation is
awarded once the candidate is through with all
November 2013 I 19
 COVER STORY I

Game Mechanics & Dynamics: http://www.bunchball.com

the stages. More than 60 per cent
candidates actively played the game
and joined HCL in the first three
months of the roll out of the
gamified platform. This new
platform not only keeps new joiners
engaged till they join the company
but has also proved instrumental in
bringing down the dropout rates of
employees at the time of joining.
HCL statistics says that the
probability of a candidate dropping
after playing the game is 1.26 per
cent as compared to 10.62 per cent
for candidates who do not play the
game. Naveen Narayanan, Global
Head of Talent Acquisition at HCL
Technologies perceives the biggest
gain of gamifying the employee on-
boarding process has been in terms
of their enhanced ability to predict
who will join and who won't.
According to him, talent acquisition
team can predict this with 90 per
cent accuracy. Based on this hands-
on information, recruiters reach out
to the candidates to understand their

Games are fun activities, purely meant for

entertainment. Example: angry birds, Farmville,
Differences in Terms
Candy Crush Saga and Criminal case. Game Game Game Just for
Gameful Design is the use of game thinking Thinking Elements Play Fun
in user interface. The aesthetic and usability
of games are applied for learning or teaching. Gameful
Example: teaching animal names or colors to Design
kids through puzzles, blocks, etc.
Serious Games (or simulation) involves no
fun element of games but shows real-life Gamification
challenges in a virtual setting to impart
technical, problem solving and analytical
skills. Example: 3D simulations of space
Serious Game/
missions by NASA or combats by defence
Simulation
forces.
Gamification is application of gaming
mechanics and dynamics into everyday
activities to drive change in behaviours and Game
motivation levels.
Difference in Terms: http://marczewski.me.uk/

20 I November 2013 www.humancapitalonline.com

 COVER STORY I
NAVEEN NARAYANAN
Global Head, Talent Acquisition
HCL Technologies
objections and try to convert a
potential dropout to a joiner. There
are several such success stories
among the talent acquisition team at
HCL. This exemplary approach has
enabled HCL to build a strong talent
supply chain. "HCL replicated the
success of gamification into its
powerful employee-focused strategy
of Employee First, which is now a
popular case study at the Harvard
Business School. Instead of adopting
the traditional approach of
presentations, town halls and open
houses, we decided to make use of
the gamified platform to launch and
run the program," shares Narayanan.
The choice proved beneficial because
HCL was able to gauge and address
the feelings and apprehensions of
their employees accompanying the
change.
Companies like L'Oreal and
Marriott have taken a different route
to assimilate game elements into
their recruitment and selection
process. They have gamified the
candidate selection process to hire
better job-fit candidates. L'Oral
India uses gamification to recruit new
talent and engage with prospective
employees. The use of these games
are reflective of L'Oral's innovative
22 I November 2013
approach to recruitment and play a
key role in attracting students from
a wide variety of disciplines such as
marketing, human resources and
sales/ Operations. L'Oral has three
unique gamification tools -
'Brandstorm', 'R U HR?' and
'REVEAL' to recruit professionals
into the organization. L'Oral
Brandstorm is an offline game for
recruiting marketing professionals. It
challenges students to develop a new
product line for one of L'Oral's
brands as well as a fully integrated
marketing plan and launch campaign
for products they develop. The game
requires students to analyze current
market conditions - from styling
trends to spending habits - in order
to identify niche opportunities for
their products. L'Oral REVEAL is
an online business game for
management aspirants. Through this
game, L'Oral contributes to the
candidate's professional growth and
determines what his / her future
could be within their global business.
The goal of this game is select a
candidate for internship or as a full-
time employee depending on the
skillset. R U HR? focuses on strategies
in human resource management
where the game is to develop an HR
strategy. The game challenges the
students to solve a real HR case and
brings out their team work, creativity
and HR vision. Mohit James,
Director, HR, L'Oreal India says, "We
attempt to recruit 30 percent of the
company's young managerial cadre
through these gaming channels." He
adds that L'Oreal business games
have a double objective of offering a
proactive solution for L'Oreal to
meet the best young talent and at
the same time providing a once-a-
lifetime chance for students to gain
a highly stimulating, multicultural
experience and understands the
company. L'Oral sees great value in
using gamifying processes while
hiring new talent. By creating
challenging situations which are true
to life and including them into the
gaming context through the
application of game mechanics,
companies can increase engagement
and output from potential
candidates. Mohit James puts the
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 COVER STORY I
SRIRAM RAJAGOPAL
VP - HR, Cognizant
spotlight on crowdsourcing and
collecting powerful customer data as
the two most important benefits of
gamification. Crowdsourcing helps in
solving complex business problems
where participants bring in a fresh
perspective to solve tricky situations.
As these games require
comprehensive research and study,
it also helps the organization to
collect important customer data and
statistics. Finally, it also helps L'Oral
gauge talent while promoting the
competitive environment that is
associated with game. The company
also uses gamification as a platform
to screen the applicant's analytical
tools that might not be available
through traditional hiring processes.
"Overall, it is a great tool to choose
the right candidate at the right time",
says James.
Marriott also has a Facebook
game named 'My Marriott Hotel',
24 I November 2013
which is based on the concept of
Farmville, for pre-screening job
applicants.
Cognizant Technologies has
adopted gamification in the
deployment of talent processes and
training programs. Sriram Rajagopal,
Vice President, Human Resources at
Cognizant shares a few insights: "Our
approach to gamification consists of
structural gamification that propels
associates through unalterable
content; content gamification that
applies game elements to make
alterable content more game-like,
and game-based learning that uses
self-contained game environments to
impart knowledge, skills, and
abilities." Cognizant's intricately
designed My Career suite of tailor-
made solutions helps associates
assimilate and execute core HR
processes, especially in the area of
performance management. It is
based on an arcade racing
experience, where associates drive
along a course covering numerous
process-centric milestones. The pre-
race, warm-up segment helps the
associates understand their careers
and roles by way of scorecards, skills
and competencies matrices, training
and development needs, and role
movements in the lattice. In the
racing segment, they set goals at the
starting line, do a mid-year check-in
at the pit-stop, and complete year-
end performance evaluation at the
finish line. Notable highlights of the
solution include a SMART goal
simulator at the start line, where the
associates get real-time feedback on
the quality of their goals.
Additionally, two engaging learning
games train them to prepare for and
execute the performance appraisal
process. These games leverage
elements ranging from avatars and
social/peer rating, to badges,
leaderboards, and progression bars.
As part of their enterprise-wide
integrated talent management
program, Cognizant encourage its
associates to create individual
development plans (IDPs) and
complete a set of learning programs
aligned with those plans. To motivate
the employees to participate in self-
driven learning, Cognizant has also
developed a learning game called
LearnIQuest that generates and
sustains the interest of the employees
by way of interactive quizzes,
crosswords, course
recommendations, peer
collaboration, checkpoint rewards,
and non-learning games. Then there
is also The Catch Me If You Can game
that helps employees achieve faster
and effective learning transfer
through applying game elements
such as levels, mission and
challenges. Gamification has yielded
significant benefits for Cognizant in
terms of improved associate
participation in HR processes. As
Rajagopal puts it, "It has catalyzed
superior performance goals,
improved process compliance, and
faster and more effective learning."
A mid-sized IT company,
Persistent Systems headquartered at
Pune addressed the challenges in its
performance management process
by building a gamified platform for
employees to showcase their skills,
achievements and contributions. The
in-built alerts in the system
recommend actions that guide
employees towards desirable
behaviours, remind them of due-
actions and assist in earning
appropriate recognition. Appraisals
are primarily conducted by
considering the rewards, game
positions and activities of the
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employees in their respective game
profile. The new platform has been
in operation for close to three years
and the company has witnessed a
reduction in employee attrition by
over 350 basis points year on year as
well as saved over 28,000 man-hours
in 2013 by eliminating the need for
an arduous and time-consuming
annual appraisal process, mentions
the Workforce Development Blog of
American Society of Training and
Development (ASTD).
Learning through gaming
Gamification has also seeped the
training and development function
of HR. For example, Deloitte has
partnered with Badgeville to gamify
its online learning portal for leaders.
This portal is known as Deloitte
Leadership Academy. The move was
aimed at increasing participation and
engagement through adding virtual
rewards in the form of badges. It
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allows participants to share their
achievements on social media
platforms such as LinkedIn and
Facebook. In her blog 'How Deloitte
Made Learning a Game', Jeanne C.
Meister, co-author of The 2020
Workplace: How Innovative
Companies Attract, Develop & Keep
Tomorrow's Employees Today, stated
that since the integration of
gamification into Deloitte Leadership
Academy there has been a 37 per
cent increase in the number of users
returning to the site each week.
Learners not only find competing
with each other motivating but also
the opportunity to challenge their
own best score makes it an addictive
experience.
Enterprise gamification has found
keen buyers in all functional areas of
HR, including talent acquisition,
learning & development, talent
management and performance
management functions. What's more,
I COVER STORY
MOHIT JAMES
Director - HR, L'Oreal India
Zensar Technologies is using
gamification to promote cultural
values and NTT Data is deploying it
to build collaborative teams for
knowledge sharing.
Employee wellness gets high
Another very interesting application
of gamification in HR has been seen
in encouraging employee wellness
programs at workplace. A survey on
'Emerging Technology in Health
Engagement' conducted by
WorldatWork and Buck Consultants
revealed that gamification is the most
prevalent and effective technology
as compared to mobile gaming and
social media platforms for achieving
the objectives of workplace wellness
programs. Taking cue from Next
Jump, a NY-based employee
incentive start-up, whose Enterprise
Gamification of Fitness, was featured
by Gabe Zichermann as a keynote at
the GSummit gamification
conference. It has a gamification tool
that tracks the number of times
individual employees and specific
teams work out in the gym. There
are rewards and leaderboards with
live updates. Charles Kim, CEO of
Next Jump commented inn G-
Summit San Francisco July
conference, that the company has
November 2013 I 25
 COVER STORY I
drastically improved the number of
employees doing regular workouts
to over 75 per cent. This has been
made possible by using the game
dynamics of rewards, social cohesion
and competition. Apparently,
gamification has enormous potential
as a tool to motivate and engage
employees.
According to Aon-Hewitt India
Study, one of the 8-Mantras of this
Generation Y is 'A workplace with a
buzz' which translates into a fun
workplace where people bond, a
vibrant atmosphere and cool
physical work environment. So what
better way than mixing work and
play to create a young, dynamic and
vibrant employer brand?
Beyond points and badges
Gartner predicts that by 2014, 80 per
cent of current gamified applications
will fail to meet business objectives,
primarily because of poor design.
This is primarily because
gamification is not just about
aesthetics, levels, points, badges and
leaderboards. There is a whole lot
of research, analysis, planning,
brainstorming, testing and piloting
that goes behind the
26 I November 2013
implementation of a gamified
platform to make it a success.
According to Narayanan,
"Organizations which adopt
gamification just for the fun of being
a part of the industry trend are
bound to fail." He strongly
recommends that companies should
begin by developing an analytical
hypothesis, validated by relevant
data points, which should
consciously explains the things that
you want to turnaround using the
principles of gamification.
Companies should invest good
amount of time and efforts to
ensure the correctness of this step.
"The whole idea of gamification
stems from the natural principle of
'you enjoy it, you do it'; forcing
employees by making it a
mandatory item in their work plan
kills the charm of it," he urges.
Rajagopal believes that
gamification should be applied in
contexts that seamlessly complement
the process or learning initiative,
such that associates can connect to
the concepts with little or no
learning curve. "Needless to say, a
balance should be maintained in the
application of gamification, so as not
to dilute the gravity of the process,"
he adds. The hallmark of
gamification success lies in adopting
a player-centric design that focus
on the motivations and rewards that
truly engage and excite employees.
Game mechanics such as points,
badges and leader boards are simply
the tools that implement the
underlying engagement models.
Designing an application that caters
to the intrinsic and extrinsic
motivators of employees is what
meets the eye. James echoes that
the biggest success factors for
effective implementation of
gamification is to have a person
on board who is well versed with
the company's business and has
a glimpse of the culture that he/
she is getting into. The essence
of gamification lies in building a
genuine culture shift that gives
up control and supports
empowered employees.
Work and play vs work or
play
Industry pundits are tagging
gamification as a forceful meta-
wave with promising results for
workforce management in this
new, more digitized and
networked world. HR leaders and
managers are using different
strategies and tools to create a
customized gaming experience for
their employees that not only
motivate them to desired action or
behaviour but also keep them
enthusiastic and talking about it for
a longer period of time. Proponents
of gamification perceive it as the next
big revolution to meet HR challenges
while critics call it a passing fad. Who
will prove to be right, time will say?
However for now, it won't be wrong
to say that the companies who had
applied enterprise gamification in the
right way are reaping benefits in
terms of attracting, retaining and
developing talent to build a high
performance innovation-driven
employer brand. It has earned
supporters for changing behaviours,
developing new skills and enabling
innovation. In the long run, specific
metrics to measure the ROI of
enterprise gamification would come
in handy. HC
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