Gamification in the workplace: 24 examples that work

Benefits of gamification: what the research says

Most articles quote vendor surveys. These three studies are the ones worth knowing.

1. Sailer and Homner, 2020 meta-analysis

   Across experiments on gamified learning, effects were significant but small: g = 0.49 on what people learned, 0.36 on motivation and 0.25 on behavior. For behavior, a game story and competition combined with collaboration worked especially well.

   What it means: Expect a nudge, not a transformation, and build team play into it.

   Source: Educational Psychology Review (open access)

2. Landers, Bauer and Callan, 2017 experiment

   On a brainstorming task, a leaderboard alone lifted performance to about the level of difficult or impossible assigned goals. The authors suggest people quietly set a goal near the top of the board.

   What it means: Leaderboards work because they act like goals, so the targets on them must feel reachable.

   Source: Computers in Human Behavior, via University of Minnesota

3. Mollick and Rothbard, Wharton field experiment

   In an 18-day field experiment that invited 448 salespeople at a tech start-up, a sales game lifted positive feelings at work for employees who bought into it and lowered them for those who did not. Performance did not improve in either group.

   What it means: Consent decides whether a game helps or hurts. Mandatory fun can do harm.

   Source: Knowledge at Wharton

Why gamification works

• Visible progress. A bar, a level or a streak shows people how far they have come, which a to-do list never does.
• Fast feedback. Points and badges confirm the right behavior the same day instead of at the annual review.
• Clear targets. A well-set board or challenge works like a goal, the mechanism the leaderboard experiment points to.
• A reason to work together. Team goals give people a shared score, the pattern the learning meta-analysis found especially effective.
• Better days, when people opt in. Games people choose to play make work feel better; forced ones make it feel worse.

24 workplace gamification examples, by goal

Each one uses a single mechanic, works on a spreadsheet or a whiteboard, and can run for one season.

Looking for one-off contests rather than an ongoing system? Our office competition ideas cover those, and employee incentive ideas cover the rewards themselves.

Game mechanics: when they help and when they backfire

The same mechanic can lift a team or split it. The difference is in the details.

Points

Help when they reward a specific behavior and everyone can earn them.

Backfire when they count whatever is easiest to count, so people chase the count.

Levels

Help when each level matches a real skill, so leveling up means something.

Backfire when they turn into a seniority ladder nobody new can climb.

Badges

Help when they mark a moment worth retelling and peers award them.

Backfire when there are so many that collecting them is the point.

Challenges and quests

Help when they are short, optional and clearly finished when done.

Backfire when they pile extra tasks onto a full week.

Team goals and progress bars

Help when the whole team can move the bar and wins together.

Backfire when one or two people do all the work while the bar moves.

Streaks

Help when they track a small daily habit and stay private.

Backfire when one missed day on vacation wipes out weeks of effort.

Leaderboards

Help when they rank teams or improvement, reset often, and only show the top.

Backfire when the same few names always lead and everyone else stops trying.

Prizes

Help when they are small, fun and shared.

Backfire when they are big enough to make people cut corners.

A fairness checklist

Run any design through these before launch. A no on any line is worth fixing first.

• Make joining a real choice, with no cost for sitting it out.
• Check that every role in the group has a way to score.
• Score the behavior you want, not the easiest number to pull from a system.
• Run seasons of four to eight weeks, then wipe the board.
• Show the top three or team standings; never post who is last.
• When someone finds a loophole, fix the rule rather than blame the player.
• Leave game scores out of reviews, raises and promotion talks.
• Make sure remote, part-time and other-time-zone staff can score equally.
• Tell people what is tracked, who can see it, and when it is deleted.

How to roll out gamification in 5 steps

Start small, with one team and one season, and let the results decide what happens next.

1. 1Pick one behavior and a baseline. Name the single thing you want more of, such as finished training modules or help articles written, and record where it stands today.
2. 2Design the rules with the team. Draft two or three mechanics, show them to the people who will play, and change what feels unfair. Buy-in is what makes a game help.
3. 3Pilot one season with one team. Run it for four to six weeks on a spreadsheet or a board before you buy any software.
4. 4Measure the behavior and the mood. Compare the behavior with your baseline, and ask how the game felt in a short pulse survey before and after.
5. 5Keep, change or stop. Share the results with the team, fix the rules that did not work, and end the game if people did not enjoy it.

For the before-and-after survey, pick a few questions from our employee engagement survey questions.

Gamification software for employee engagement

Six kinds of tools sell under this label. Settle your rules first, then pick the kind that fits them.

• Learning platforms: points, badges and quizzes inside training courses.
• Sales performance tools: leaderboards and contests built on your CRM data.
• Recognition platforms: peer points that people trade for rewards.
• Wellness challenge apps: team step, habit and activity challenges.
• Chat add-ons for Slack or Teams: kudos, quizzes and streaks where people already work.
• Live quiz tools: questions with a live scoreboard for meetings and training.

Instant gamification: a hosted game for your team

Not ready to build a system? A hosted game gives a team rounds, points and friendly competition for one hour, with nothing to set up. A host runs it live on Zoom by default (Teams, Google Meet or Webex on request).

• Office Olympics. Three Olympic-style challenges, team games plus quick solo rounds, with medals.
• Your Favorite Game Shows! Small teams play classic TV game shows, all at once instead of waiting for turns. More on our virtual game show page.
• Trivia with a Twist! Rounds that use different parts of your brain, with points for more than right answers. More on our virtual trivia page.

Good to know:

• Book about 2 weeks ahead, and earlier if you want a December date.
• Teams split across time zones can run it as two sessions.
• Hybrid works as one virtual game for everyone, or an in-person game at your office plus a virtual session for remote staff.
• To measure the effect, KraftyLab Intelligence sends a short pulse survey after every event to participants with an email, with AI summaries of the answers.

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