Trying to spread happiness, success and fun in the workplace is one of my chief goals so it really was an honour for E-Web Marketing to be included in the list of Australia’s most innovative companies, especially since it is the smallest company in the top 50 in terms of staff size. The thing is; the premise we use that makes our company such a great place to work in while being successful is incredibly simple!
Gamification
This is the term we use at E-Web Marketing to describe the process of turning work into a kind of game. We have performed research and found that adults can become incredibly focused and pour a huge amount of time into virtual games such as World of Warcraft. According to detail studies, players in the World of Warcraft have spent the equivalent of 5.93 billion years playing in a bid to be ‘victorious’ in the game which of course means solving problems in their virtual environment.
It became pretty apparent to me that people spent such an incredible length of time in this virtual world solving these problems because it is fun. From there, it was obvious that harnessing this level of focus into real-world problems could produce amazing results. Think about it: How many people stay up late to finish a video game as opposed to putting in extra hours at work? After some analysis, I came up with reasoning that explained the success of gamification.
5 Reasons Why Gamification Works
- It offers transparent incentives and goals.
- The actions of employees become more visible to themselves, colleagues and the organization as a whole. In this situation, it is only natural that people try harder to impress.
- Instead of giving employees a ‘role’ that dictates rewards and remuneration; it recognises people’s work and rewards them based on achievements.
- It adds an element of fun into the workplace.
- Employees are encouraged to learn new skills while also reinforcing behaviour changes.
E-Web Marketing has been busily gamifying the workplace and in 2012, we made it into ‘Gamecore’, a cloud-based software that takes the process of gamification to an entirely new level.
Now that the company has been recognised by such a respected publication as BRW Magazine and given the prestigious title of being one of the nation’s Most Innovative Companies in 2013, it is clear that the learning and innovative culture within the company is gaining fans on a broader scale. We hope that gamification catches on and transforms workplaces from dull to fun.
I would also like to give a special mention to our developer Adrian Ciaschetti who helped to make gamification happen, to Culture Club who came up with the brilliant idea and continued to tweak and innovate to make it even more awesome and finally, the incredible E-Web family who were so quick to support Gamecore and help make it such a rousing success.