Information about the myriad benefits of gamification in corporate training abounds. It’s no secret that the use of elearning in business raises employee engagement, increases efficiency, decreases errors, and increases the return on investment (ROI).
It’s important to take a look at each of these advantages individually and in a real-world example in order to understand their significance. Simply throwing around corporate buzzwords doesn’t get down to the true sense of how each one can positively affect a business’ bottom line.
- Employee engagement. One restaurant chain’s training methods included having their employees go through some traditional exercises, including shadowing another employee for a shift. When they made the switch to training via mobile gamification, they saw a 1.8% increase in sales. The reason? Players could compete against each other for the prize of choosing their own shifts. Giving them incentives to work toward raises their investment in the learning process and in their work.
- Improved Efficiency. Employees aren’t generally chomping at the bit to attend traditional training lectures. That is unless there was an activity that was so entertaining and engaging that employees could work on at their convenience and pace. Features in gamification like leaderboards, missions, and badges engages the learner and improves learning outcomes. One company experienced 37% more productivity after moving to elearning.
- Decrease in errors. Everyone makes mistakes. When an employee makes errors when dealing with a customer it can end up costing the company a sale or repeat business. One corporation used game elements to teach employees about a new product. The method made the learning process fun and the result was the sales team doubling the contract value of their new product, as compared to the value of similar products. When an employee knows their product inside and out, it shows up in the revenue generated for the company. It also results in a higher level of customer service being delivered.
- Increase in ROI. One company’s support team and sales reps were given the chance to compete against each other in an elearning game. It paid off in a big way. After experience with the game, the sales reps were able to increase their rate of resolving customer issues with the first call by 45%. Each call cost this company $35, so the savings was substantial. Sometimes money saved is overlooked when a company is figuring ROI and the focus is on revenue generated by sales. The fact is there are multiple ways to determine ROI. Increased employee retention and fewer accidents at work are examples of providing evidence of the ROI from implementing elearning with gamification.
Examples of how gamification has improved business for real companies are worth more than just reading a list of arbitrary benefits. Corporations have to keep their focus on the financial bottom line. Statistics like these give concrete evidence of the advantages of business elearning and prove that it’s worth integrating it into a training program.
Designing Digitally Inc. can assist your organization with implementing elearning that will improve employee engagement, increase productivity, and positively impact the bottom line.
