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GAMIFICATION

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Introduction about the topic

Gamification has been in use in various companies, and it is aimed at improving performance

and motivation at the work pace. Most organizations have incorporated this practice in their

platforms with the customers, the community, and the employees. It is a way that has been used

by many companies to find ways of recognizing the negating the employees that are performing

well. Gamification is a common term in the gaming industry although it has also been taken up

many business companies through the use of game-thinking and game mechanics. It employs the

use of various combinations of games such as transparency, fun, competition, and even fun and

applies them in the real world (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled, & Nacke, 2011).

When it is used in the business scenario, it uses various approaches that help in motivating of

specific behaviors. These approaches include the use of performance, training, and development,

and rewards in influencing the behavior of employees at the workplace. Gamification as a

motivation strategy is aimed at making the employees feel that they are in charge of what they

are doing at the workplace. This is vital in improving their competence hence they can easily

stick to achieving the business goals for an extended period (Deterding, Sicart, Nacke, O'Hara, &

Dixon, 2011). During employee training and development, the company should use the best

games that will allow the employees to be intrinsically motivated. The role of the business is to

provide rewards for the employees with the improved performance.

Gamification is an important practice for the most business organization. Among the benefits

that come with the practice include retention of the right talent at the company and it enhances

the building of the required corporate culture. Any company strives to retain the value

employees, and gamification is one of the main ways that can help business entities do this.

Secondly, gamification is essential for the HR as it improves the acquisition of talent as well as
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its management. When incentives and rewards are used in the hiring process, it helps attract the

right talents and also it can be used to give awards to the top recruiters in the business. Finally,

gamification encourages administrative requirements.

Exploring the topic in the body by using an example of a different company using the

gamification with HRM.

Many companies are currently using gamification with HRM in their practices. It has proved

successful in huge corporations such as PepsiCo and Aramco. Marriott International is another

company that has successfully used the gamification in their recruitment process as well as in

their operations as a way of influencing the employee behavior in the company (Hamari,

Koivisto, & Sarsa, 2014). The company has been using games to recruit the right talent, to

develop the ability, and motivate employees. The increased desire to use gamification for various

companies arises from the desire by various corporations to increase the employee engagement

levels. It is the right step towards increasing openness and having a way that rewards and

recognition are done in the corporation.

Previous research has shown that many employees in the American market feel actively

disengaged at the workplace. Companies such as Marriott International is doing their best to find

ways that they can keep their employees engaged. Marriott is one of the companies that were the

earliest adopters of gamification. The hotel-line develop an online game that allows the users to

work on all the hotel kitchen responsibilities just like The Sims or Farmville. It will enable the

players to earn virtual rewards while they are accomplishing various hotel chores. Through this,

the players get to be acquainted about the hotel industry as they enjoy playing the game. The

game that the hotel named “My Marriott Hotel” and the players from different races and

ethnicities could play the game with ease by selecting the language that they are most conversant
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with (Robson et al., 2016). The main words were Arabic, French, German, English, Spanish, and

Mandarin among other. The players could then create their virtual restaurant kitchens.

The design of the game was aimed at attracting the ardent internet users who are the millennials.

These are the frequent internet users as well as they are the right age with the talent that the

company was looking for. The company which is domestically based benefits largely from this

game as they try to expand to other regions outside the United States of America. With more

millennials playing the game, it means that more of them will be interested in the hotel in the

hospitality industry which is a plus for the emerging markets where hotels such as Marriott

International is yet to establish fully. Attracting talent using social games on platforms such as

Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn is key in ensuring that a company benefits from the talent that

is yet to be explored. A company gets the right employees that it needs by observing the prowess

of the players. Those who perform well in the games and get higher rewards might be poised to

be the right talent because of the prowess to understand how the game works.

Marriott International introduced the game majorly on its Facebook platform and the careers

page on the company website. Before the introduction of ‘My Marriott Hotel,’ the company use

another game named ‘Xplor’ where users could virtually tour various cities and solve the

challenges on the way while earning rewards in the process (Robson et al., 2016). The hotel then

allowed for the customers to redeem the rewards against the time that they stayed at Marriott

hotels. It is a way of motivating the general public to use the company services and at the same

time getting to understand how they work. Marriott has done exemplary well in of checking the

talent of prospective candidates in countries that they expected to venture in like India. It was

possible for the company to identify if most of the talent that they were looking for could
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perfectly suit the needs of the company through observing the performances of individual players

of the game ‘My Marriott Hotel.’

Use one methodology that explores the relationship between gamification and employees

behavior.

The methodology that explores the relationship between gamification and employees behavior is

the use of leaderboards to create friendly competition. Leaderboards are essential in influencing

employee behavior. As humans, many people engage in activities that will show that they are

taking the lead. Leaderboards are important in satisfying employees who will be doing their best

to appear on the top and receive rewards. Gamification allows to do their best and in return

receive recognition and be rewarded for exemplary performance. Use of games and having

rewards upon completion of various tasks by employees is key in ensuring that they compete

equally and openly. The employees who will have gathered enough points from the rewards that

are given in the game will appear on top of the leaderboards. The leading employees with more

rewards can then be rewarded hence this becomes a source of motivation. Leaderboards are

essential in identifying those employees who are performing best in the company and then they

can be rewarded with ease. When a leaderboard is used in the right way, it supports competence

at the workplace (Simpsons & Jenkins, 2015). People will be satisfied after completion of a

specific goal hence they become effective and masterful on the specific subject. It will help get

the employees more engaged at the workplace as well as increase their levels of motivation.

Recommendation

Many people in the current world love playing games mostly online or on social media

platforms. With the increased access to the internet and the need for the right talent by different
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companies, it is essential to turn attention to gamification as a solution for the HR of different

corporations. The playful tendency of human beings is good and can be utilized well. All

businesses should take the opportunity and use gamification to boost employee motivation and

performance and as well use it to get the right talent to work in the companies. Most of the

companies that have used this method have succeeded an indication that it is a new and an

important way that can be used to recruit the right candidates and reward the already existing

employees in the right manner. It is becoming more complex to recruit the needed talent just by

using the academic qualifications. The games offer an opportunity for the recruiters to observe

and identify those candidates who have the right skills that a company may require (Park et al.,

2014). Most millennials possess the right prowess that is needed by most companies, but instead

of utilizing them, most corporations look for experience and the right grades instead of the right

talent. Gamification offers the opportunity for the corporations to identify the right talent and

reward well those employees of value.

Conclusion

Gamification is the process by which business enterprises use various games as a strategy to

foster motivation and performance. The HR in different companies has also been using this

strategy as a way of identifying the right talent. Rewards and recognition are significant ways

that are used to determine performance and employees will do their best to attain the best

performance that will allow them to be awarded. Many companies have applied gamification that

includes PepsiCo, Deloitte, and Marriott Hotel. Marriott in specific succeeded in creating a game

that allowed users in places that the hotel had not ventured in to perform various tasks as a way

of identifying the people with the right skills to work in the hospitality industry (Meister, 2015).

It is a motivation strategy that can be used by any company across the world. Leaderboards can
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have a direct impact on the competence and satisfaction of employees. Most employees will do

their best to appear on top of the leaderboard by earning enough rewards from gamification.
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References

Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., & Nacke, L. (2011, September). From game design

elements to gamefulness: defining gamification. In Proceedings of the 15th international

academic MindTrek conference: Envisioning future media environments (pp. 9-15).

ACM.

Deterding, S., Sicart, M., Nacke, L., O'Hara, K., & Dixon, D. (2011, May). Gamification. Using

game-design elements in non-gaming contexts. In CHI'11 extended abstracts on human

factors in computing systems (pp. 2425-2428). ACM.

Hamari, J., Koivisto, J., & Sarsa, H. (2014, January). Does gamification work?--A literature

review of empirical studies on gamification. In 2014 47th Hawaii international

conference on system sciences (HICSS) (pp. 3025-3034). IEEE.

Meister, J. (2015). Future Of Work: Using Gamification For Human Resources. Retrieved

December 8, 2015.

Park, H. J., & Lim, K. H. (2014). A Study of Interactive Game Art Expression with Gamification

Application. International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced

Engineering, 4(3), 168-171.

Simpson, P., & Jenkins, P. (2015). Gamification and Human Resources: an overview. Brighton:

Brighton Business School.

Robson, K., Plangger, K., Kietzmann, J. H., McCarthy, I., & Pitt, L. (2016). Game on: Engaging

customers and employees through gamification. Business Horizons, 59(1), 29-36.