How does Gamifying your Onboarding help?
Shane Lim &
Academy
Natalie Monteiro
Academy
What does it mean to gamify your onboarding?
It means to apply typical elements of game-playing mechanics (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to the process of onboarding your new employees to your company and culture.
The goal of gamification in this use case is to encourage engagement between your company and employees.
Then…
What are the Gamification Onboarding benefits?
- Brings people together, especially for new onboarders
- Builds teams to break the ice with fellow colleagues during their onboarding on the first day
- Emulates a level of fun as if they are playing a game
- Addictive and elevates interest to the user e.g. Using achievement badges to reward users
- Interactive bite-sized content, leaderboard, virtual treasure hunt, rewards, achievement badges
Covid-proof!
Considering the ongoing pandemic, eOrientation allows new joiners to be effectively assimilated at the comfort of their own home.
It also enables asynchronous learning, enabling new joiners to get up to speed no matter when they join the company.
More reasons why onboarding should be gamified
- Gives a break from virtual fatigue
- Replicates the stickiness of social media
- Opens opportunities for employees to shine online whether their extroverts or introverts
- People remember the feeling of the process instead of the details
Drawbacks of conventional training
1. Can be overwhelming
The information can be quite overwhelming for new employees, and especially tiring if it is a full-day briefing.
2. Lacks immediacy
For periodic briefings (e.g. onboarding on the 1st day of every month), it could be delayed for new employees depending on when they join the company.
This would result in new employees being slow to assimilation; by the time the next briefing comes along, they would have already adapted. These new employees may have a bad first impression considering they had a less than ideal onboarding experience overall.
An Example of Onboarding Gamification
Now that we have talked about benefits and drawbacks, here is an example of good onboarding gamification taken from our very own demo game: The Onboarding Marathon!
1. Bite-sized information
Onboarding new employees with bite-sized information assists in their steady assimilation to the company.
This prevents an overload of information by making essential onboarding tasks into challenges like:
- Getting an introduction to the company
- Learning about the company’s values
- Connecting to the Wi-Fi
- Setting up the respective accounts and HR-related information
2. Interactive content
Interactive content that is both helpful and fun for the new employee. Such challenges help them get to know their department, who is their buddy/mentor — and most importantly — their bosses.
Fun challenges that give points and rewards can boost morale for the employee as well motivate them to complete more tasks that will ultimately help them settle better in the company.
3. Flexibility in Pacing
Everyone has their own pace when it comes to learning, making asynchronous learning ideal. “The Onboarding Marathon” achieves this, as new employees are able to onboard at their own pace and complete their onboarding in their own time.
In addition, they can do their onboarding on a variety of platforms. Whether it is on mobile or on computer, employees have the choice wherever and whenever they want.
Conclusion
Gamifying your onboarding provides new opportunities and flexibility to the experience you want to give your employees.
It may not be easy the first time, but it is well worth it to seamlessly assimilate your new employees to the company, which can boost morale and motivate your employees for their upcoming work in your company.
If you are interested, feel free to give our demo game for onboarding a try!