Gamification

On July 7, 2011, in HRExaminer, More2Know, by John Sumser

Gamification - HRExaminer

Marriott’s coup (launching the first real game for employment branding purposes) is going to spawn an enormous wave of nonsense. Built on painstaking reasearch and as a part of a massive problem solving process, the Marriott game is the conclusion of a rigorous process. In a later column, I’ll tell you about the deep investigation that preceded the decision to build a game.

But, that’s not the answer that most software developers want to hear. If it takes expensive research and custom analysis, it’s really hard to license. So, the games will be delivered in advance of problem definition in an awful lot of cases. The mantra of gamification will be repeated, ever loudly in case you didn’t get it the first time.

The silly trend about the so called gamification of daily life will take extraordinary twists. While there is an important lesson to be found in game mechanics, it’s not an idea that will be useful most places. Before it’s all said and done, we’ll see attempts to gamify almost every imaginable bit of mundane minutia.

Most software products and services are developed in the absence of clear understanding of the customers. That’s a good part of why technology adoption rates are so low in practice. As the Software as a Service (SaaS) model shoves success metrics off on the customer, new and exciting approaches to getting user level buy in will be trotted out.

You can bet that gamification is going to figure prominently in the misguided attempts to automate stakeholder commitment.

Instead of wondering why we ask employees to do stupid things, we are about to be deluged with gimmicks that try to motivate with fake money, fake status and fake accomplishment.

Here are some of the kinds of things you should expect to see.

  • Formville
    In this game, players are incented to complete the corporate data collection process. A series of badges and titles are awarded to people who fill in expense accounts and the web of HR documents on time (or at all).
  • Succession Plans and Zombies
    This game is for all of the people who know that they could do a better job than the current management team. Each person is allowed to construct their own corporate succession plan. Then, players wager a percentage of their paycheck on the outcome.
  • Angry Boss
    Players throw various kinds of boss at pigs. Each level includes a hidden agenda that can be discovered by flipping the boss off properly.
  • World of Workcraft
    Nothing much actually gets done in this game. But, there are lots of meetings and if you go to enough of them, you can give advice to novices.
  • Talent Management Bingo
    Who are the most valuable people in the organization? All employees are issued a bingo chart. Numbers are called based on meritorious accomplishment. Unless you are the management team’s favorite. Then you just get to fill it out yourself.
  • Wage Slave Trader
    Employees earn points for getting to work on time, limiting facebook usage, actually doing work, and eating lunch at the desk. No one wants to be the Mayor of tardy.
  • ForcedSquare
    Checking in has never been more fun. Monthly bonuses given to the players who leave their desk the least.
  • ClubOnboard
    Your virtual employee is really the new guy in the department. Help him grow by feeding him orientation papers, HR forms, inside tips about brown-nosing effectiveness and
    guides to the best bathroom stalls.
  • Yuck
    Reviews of food from the company cafeteria and the roach coach.
  • Mr. Golden Boy
    Points for delegating your to do list the fastest. Lose points for any task left on your list at the end of the first coffee break.
  • Sourcer’s Surprise
    Sourcers find new candidates then cast resume and interview spells to make them perfectly fit job requirements. The goal is to get paid before the spells wear off. (oops, we already have that one).

Can you think of any other internal processes that will benefit from gamification?

About the author

John Sumser

John Sumser is the founder, principal author and editor-in-chief of the HRExaminer Online Magazine. John explores the people, technology, ideas and careers of senior leaders in Human Resources and Human Capital. John is the also principal of Two Color Hat where he routinely advises Human Resources, Recruiting Departments and Talent Management teams with product analysis, market segmentation, positioning, strategy and branding guidance.

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  • KC

    John – the examples you site are witty and who knows, maybe probable somewhere…but those that provide the mindless, meaningless and worthless tote boards, badges and silly game like pablum you site will fail miserably…its just not fun!

    Where Marriott is concerned, with all due respect, you have totally missed your mark.  This is an example of exactly how games can make business fun and recruiting a positive experience for career consumers once again.  There is a reason that only 5% of workers do anything to grow their career when they are not actively seeking a job – its because they have been conditioned after 50 years of being drilled down, screened out and told, “sorry, you’re not good enough,” to avoid recruiting methods like the plague…there is no secret that people strongly dislike current employment practices.  What Marriott is doing has the potential to change that perception and show how rewarding a career can be ( in this case…).

    Before you condemn the approach and lament the likely copycats, it may be a good idea to look a bit deeper under the hood.  One of the most brilliant Game Design icons, Jon Radoff, recently wrote a book titled, “Game On – Energize Your Business with Social Games.”  You may want to read this seminal work as it provides a framework for exactly what a successful use of games in business entails (its a really fun read too!).

    Instead of tearing down novel approaches and criticizing them – perhaps we should be applauding Marriott for their incredible forward thinking and insight.  Their Hospitality Facebook game is ground breaking and has nothing to do with the trite gamification term or attrbutes you attach to it in your post.  They clearly have spent a huge amount of R&D and money on making it comparable to a Zynga product (yeah, that’s Zynga with over a $1 billion in revenue and 100′s of million game players whose average player is a 44 year old woman!). 

    As a qualifier, I have never worked nor have any affiliation with Marriott, or their games  - but am a veteran of Talent Mgmt who has spent his years working with extremely passive job seekers, trying to get them to consider new challenging careers…

  • http://www.hrexaminer.com John Sumser

    Oh, I think you’re right. If I was unclear, the Marriott game is a stelar
    example of how the gamification thing can work. Marriott has, in fact, set a
    very high bar for anyone who wants to go down this path.

    You are exactly right when you say “What Marriott is doing has the potential
    to change that perception and show how rewarding a career can be” Further,
    they’ve

    What I am lamenting is the inevitable dumbing down of games to the point
    that they are meaningless and harmful to the brands that sponsor them (or
    embed them in their offerings). There are really interesting and important
    uses for ganes in HR and Recruiting. But, making badges and award levels for
    mundane tasks will be the focus of a lot of gaming. It’s inevitable that the
    rush to gamification will include a ton of bad ideas. I hoped this piece
    would be a clear warning about how dumb you can look if you don’t focus on
    the right things.

    In tomorrow’s article, I’m taking a look at the way that the Marriott
    process used ethnography to understand the game’s audience before they even
    considered building a game. That sort of patient planning is what’s required
    to make gamification effective.

  • KC

    Ahhh…obviously we ARE on the same page…and I look forward to reading your next article.  In Jon Radoff’s book, he spends an entire chapter reviewing the “customers as players” concept (ethnography in your context), where he explains that it is imperative to research, survey and completely understand who your players will be before taking any design steps.  It’s facsinating as the research is eerily similar to an employment interview…

    Your point about cheapened gamifying tactics is already happening and is unfortunately inevitable in our “just do it” Nike world…hopefully if more career games like Marriott’s get built there will at least be a bench mark for what a great business based “social game” should be like…

    I should point out that Jon is one of our Sr. Advisors and his company Disruptor Beam has agreed to take on our “work life” game – but we are just beginning our R&D so it will be some time before it is ready for review.  His book is what brought us together…

    Thanks for kind reply John!

  • http://twitter.com/SylvieDahl Sylvia Dahlby

    Succession Plans and Zombies – oh my. I can’t tell you how much I love this article. Are we bored yet?

  • http://twitter.com/ddebow ddebow

    John - 

    Really like your tongue in cheek comments.  Gamification – (boy that term is overused) is really just great design, done well.  It takes time, experiments and is hard.  

    We’ve been doing this for a bit, with game developers, in the HR / management space.   Here’s a deck with some of our thinking – and painful lessons – which I think you will find aligned with yours. 

    http://www.slideshare.net/Rypple/work-better-play-together-on-enterprise-gamification

    Cheers, 

    Daniel 
    co-ceo, Rypple

  • http://www.hrexaminer.com John Sumser

    Thanks. That’s a great set of slides.

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  • http://twitter.com/mobile_dave Dave Martin

    John
    You made me laugh out loud – I think I like angry boss the best!

    Gamification as a concept has worked very well for many apps and sites. http://stackoverflow.com/ has engaged many IT and software engineers in competing to share knowledge and provide the best answer to other peoples questions. 

    On the surface this kind of solution could be mistaken with Formville and ForcedSquare but as you are pointing out there is a big difference, for a start helping out other people provides genuine satisfaction and having a high score provides an ego to show off the developers expertise. The same website -ie a tech forum  - without the gamification would have been less successful. There maybe areas in the workplace for this latest fad, but it will need careful thought and until there is a proven template for success probability suggests most upcoming attempts will fail. 

    One key reason I expect failure is a general lack of understanding of the word gamifcation. For most it will be a poor tick box exercise focusing on points, checkins, badges and awards.

    I wrote some time ago about this mis-understanding around gamification and detailed exactly what makes this stuff work, you might enjoy it- although it is not as entertaining as your article! http://mobiledave.me/2011/07/18/whats-the-deal-with-gamification/

    Speak soon
    Dave

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