?? How Gamification Can Boost Employee Engagement

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By Adrian R. Camilleri and Ananta Neelim | March 28, 2024

A core responsibility of every manager is to motivate and engage their employees. This is because disengaged employees show lower productivity and exhibit higher absenteeism. Traditional approaches to increasing employee engagement include giving workers more autonomy, a higher sense of belonging and purpose, and additional growth opportunities. Nevertheless, employee disengagement in the workplace hit a nine-year high in 2022 in the U.S., with approximately three-fourths of employees reporting being disengaged.

In light of difficulties maintaining employee engagement, some companies have begun to explore alternative approaches designed to generate excitement. For example, in 2018, United Airlines replaced a program that gave small quarterly bonuses to all employees with one that that entered every employee with perfect quarterly attendance into a lottery with huge prizes on offer. However, employees immediately rebelled and the lottery program was quickly removed.

Was the introduction of “gamification” at United Airlines an inherently flawed idea or was the backlash due to the poor execution? We believe it is the latter.

In this article, our aim is to highlight cutting-edge research from behavioral science to help managers effectively incorporate gamification elements in their workplace. We focus on employee reward programs because compensation and benefits is the top factor people consider when pursuing new jobs and also because we believe it is an underutilized way to boost employee engagement.

1. Unleashing the Power of Gamification
2. Probabilistic Rewards Increase Motivation
3. Harnessing the Potential of Probabilistic Rewards

Let your ears listen, click ??

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