Level Up Your Talent With Gamification In Talent Management!

Remember when we played Scrabble, competing to put the best words forward? The competitive streak to excel and prove your vocabulary sought to improve the proper use of words during conversations and eventually taught us to be better in communication. Can that competitive feeling in games bring out the best in us? The answer is yes.

Gamification was coined in 2002 by Neil Peiling, but was widely accepted in 2010 when Bunchball, backed by Adobe Systems, used this as a technique for business and services. When crediting the term, we cannot ignore social media for the limelight and plethora of opportunities it has given it. Social media has evolved from marketing tool to a platform which gamifies the entire talent acquisition process and builds a brand image of the organization. Gone are the days when a certificate would be boasted, the time now calls for a digital badge. Talent management is in game to hire, retain and train talent. The stats vouch for the positive change that gamification brought with it. According to the Aberdeen survey, an organization that adopted the policy of gamifying work floor activity had better engagement, the score moved up to 48% from only 28%.

Correlating gamification and social recruitment

From a high level overview, we all seem to be the pieces in the great game of talent management and workforce productivity. When combined with the social power, the extra edge that gamification lends is irrefutable.

The gamification phenomenon has been advocated by thought and talent management leaders for the spirit of focus and the productivity that it brings into several business functions where employee performance is the key growth driver. Think sales hiring, customer service hiring, and employee learning and development, for starters. Each of these talent management functions, when layered into different levels of success and combined with the power of credentials and rewards, brings about unprecedented levels of motivation and focus in the respective departments, which in turn, translates into high performing, competitive teams within the organization.

There are a multitude of gamified workforce applications that the talent management leader can deploy when it comes to retaining and training talent. For example, instead of providing letters of improvement, one can provide a certificate stating the clearance of Level 1. Preferably, the entire communication cycle should be designed on this pivot and a maintained leaderboard adds to the brownie points.

The gamification wave has changed the DNA of talent acquisition and talent engagement policies, so much so that it is been predicted 70% of the global organization will encompass at least one gamified application – be it on the lines of training and development or improved work floor productivity. The future of the talent acquisition is inevitable and the winds of gamification will take the talent war by storm.

Be prepared to go home if you aren’t gamifying and upping the ante!