How do you use gamification and recognition to motivate and reward your global referrers and advocates?

1 Define your goals and metrics

Before you design your gamification and recognition system, you need to have clear and measurable goals and metrics for your referral and advocacy program. What are the outcomes you want to achieve, such as number of hires, quality of candidates, diversity of talent, or social media reach? How will you track and evaluate your progress and impact? How will you communicate your results and feedback to your referrers and advocates? Having a data-driven approach will help you align your incentives with your objectives and demonstrate your value proposition.

2 Choose your gamification elements

Gamification is the use of game-like elements, such as points, badges, levels, leaderboards, or challenges, to motivate and reward desired behaviors and actions. Gamification can make your referral and advocacy program more fun, interactive, and competitive, as well as provide instant feedback and recognition. However, not all gamification elements work for everyone, so you need to consider your audience, culture, and context when choosing them. For example, some people may prefer individual rewards over team-based ones, or intrinsic motivation over extrinsic rewards. You also need to balance the difficulty and frequency of your gamification elements, so that they are challenging enough to stimulate interest, but not too hard or too easy to discourage participation.

3 Customize your recognition options

Recognition is the act of acknowledging and appreciating the contributions and achievements of your referrers and advocates. Recognition can boost morale, loyalty, and engagement, as well as reinforce your employer brand and values. Recognition can take many forms, such as verbal praise, public recognition, personal thank you notes, certificates, trophies, or gifts. However, recognition is not one-size-fits-all, so you need to customize your options to suit your referrers and advocates' preferences, cultures, and needs. For example, some people may value monetary rewards over non-monetary ones, or social recognition over private recognition. You also need to vary your recognition options, so that they are relevant, timely, and meaningful.

4 Integrate your gamification and recognition system

Once you have chosen your gamification elements and recognition options, you need to integrate them into your referral and advocacy program. This means creating a clear and consistent system that explains how your referrers and advocates can earn points, badges, levels, or other rewards, and how they can redeem them for recognition options. You also need to provide a user-friendly and accessible platform or tool that allows your referrers and advocates to track their progress, see their rankings, view their rewards, and share their achievements. You also need to promote and market your gamification and recognition system, so that your referrers and advocates are aware of it and motivated to join and participate.

5 Test and optimize your gamification and recognition system

Finally, you need to test and optimize your gamification and recognition system regularly, to ensure that it is working as intended and delivering the results you want. You can use data analytics, surveys, interviews, focus groups, or other methods to collect feedback and insights from your referrers and advocates, as well as from your candidates and hires. You can also use A/B testing, experiments, or pilots to try out different gamification elements or recognition options, and see what works best for your audience and context. You also need to update and refresh your gamification and recognition system, to keep it relevant, engaging, and rewarding.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?