Gamified learning is one of the most effective methods of learning that have cropped up in the digital age. Students learn new things via a game-like approach that engages them and helps them retain knowledge. 80% of the participants in a survey said that they’d be more productive if they learn through a game. Engaging employees during corporate training and getting them to actually participate and remember what they learnt can be very difficult. This is why many companies including Fortune 500s have started gamifying corporate training to increase the rate of knowledge retention and employee engagement.
There are also many reasons why companies put in place gaming systems to help their employees reach effective corporate learning. These reasons are:
- Games help learners understand things better. Look back to any game you’ve ever played. At the first stage, the game is simple but as you make progress, you get to higher stages of difficulty. And you may have to endure some losses. What you learn as you lose allows you to tackle the game from another angle and win. In games, people are not ashamed to fail. In fact, the perspective most players have is that after failing a round, they’ve learnt what they shouldn’t do when they replay the round.
- Games provide a safe and realistic environment for employees to practice their skills. In real life settings, employees, especially new ones, can’t be innovative or try new things because it could end up hurting the business or company. This is why practicing in a game allows employees to make whatever mistakes they need to make to learn what not to do without harming the business.
- Games improve employee knowledge retention. The best and most effective games keep players emotionally-invested. Using goals, rewards and character loops, employees get motivated to go to higher levels and learn new skills which they can apply to their work.
- Games also enhance employees’ communication. In gaming scenarios, team members learn to collaborate and communicate with each other while working toward a common goal.
Here are 7 tips for implementing gaming system to reach effective corporate learning
- Experiential learning is an important part of gamified corporate learning
Make sure designers remember that the focus of the gaming system that they’re implementing into employees’ corporate learning is to effectively help employees learn. Online trivia games may seem to you like game-based learning systems, but they’re not, because they do not help employees to learn through practice and interaction. A great representation of game-based corporate learning would be airplane flying simulators or car-driving simulators.
In the same way, gaming systems can be used to create simulators for skills like negotiation, selling, team communication, customer support, and time management. Games teach people lessons through practice and experience. Therefore, when implementing gaming systems for effective corporate learning, it is important that gamified corporate training gives room for employees to practice and practice until they’ve learnt what they should learn.
- Add practical lessons
Employees want to know that what you’re teaching them is actually useful. Many employees are not interested in learning by reading books and learning about theories and models. If corporate training involves more theories and models, employees are more likely to forget what they’re taught within 24 hours. Effective corporate learning should be stimulated by including precise and straight-to-the-point content in the training that employees can actually apply to their day to day work. Employees prefer to get tips, skills, techniques, tools and tricks that can make them more productive and efficient.
- Encourage healthy competition
One of the reasons why many people get hooked on games is because of the competition. Most times, competitions are against a scoreboard or leader board. In a big company, it is also possible to encourage competition between employees or teams. You can use rankings or public recognition as well to encourage workers. However, you have to be careful not to let rivalry develop among co-workers, due to your gaming systems. This is why leader boards may be the best choice. You can implement gamified corporate learning by encouraging employees to compete against themselves or their colleagues even in a company like Assignment Holic.
- Encourage social interaction
You can make corporate training more interesting by encouraging social interaction within co-workers. You can include some interactive scenarios to make corporate training more interactive. For example, in a negotiation-training simulation in EssayWritingLab, employees were allowed to negotiate and make different choices. Then, they were allowed to see the negative consequences of bad choices and the positive results of positive choices.
- Employ experienced game-based learning providers or designers
A team of game designers or programmers without knowledge in game-based learning will be an absolute waste of time and resources for your company. Same can be said of a team of capable training consultants. So, you should find game-based learning providers who have experience, facilitating effective corporate learning with gaming systems just like Assignmentgeek did.
- Focus on mastery and performance
Companies put in place, gaming systems for effective corporate learning because they want employees to remember and master what they’ve learnt and apply them to their actual job performance. As a result, employees should master the contents of their training in different subjects like report paper writing and practice applying it repeatedly in the game. The best way to help them is to allow employees to play the same level as many times as they want to, until they reach the highest score.
- Allow gaming systems to easily translate to real life
Companies should make sure that the game system can easily translate to real life. For example, when designing a game that encourages sales, the products which employees sell in the game should be almost equivalent to real life products. This will make it easier for employees to translate what they’ve learnt in the game to real life.
Conclusion
Implementing gaming systems to encourage effective corporate learning helps employees to develop self-efficacy. It also allows employees to practice what the company is training them to do till they are better at it. This is why companies should implement the tips above to help their employees learn well and become more efficient.
Author Bio
Scott Mathews is an e-commerce marketer and a content writer at Brill Assignment. He is a regular contributor at papersowl review where he’s also involved in gamified learning. He provides career advice and australian assignment help. Scott loves reading romance novels during his free time and he’s a fan of Nicholas Sparks and Julie Garwood.
