According to the findings of a recent survey, 91% of workers found that their work experience was improved through gamified motivators. But what is gamification and why should we integrate it into our work and learning environments?
Gamification is the process of using game elements in menial tasks to make them more enjoyable to the user, to motivate them to finish their task. Whether you implement gamification in schools, at work, or in your daily life, game elements have shown clear benefits to its users, including:
Increased motivation: Gamification increases a user’s motivation by using reward systems to encourage people to achieve their overall goals. It creates smaller and more tangible goals for users to work toward, allowing them to receive frequent feedback. Gamification also helps inform users how they can improve, which motivates them to be more productive.
Increased productivity: Gamification is linked to increased levels of engagement and productivity. This is because it increases motivation for tasks and, if team activities are gamified, it creates a collaborative and competitive environment. However, the main reason for increased productivity is caused by dopamine, a substance your body creates to make you feel happy. When you win a game or achieve a goal, your brain rewards you with a dose of dopamine, making you more likely to repeat the same activity again in order to get that happy feeling.
Team bonding: Simply put, gamification encourages engagement between its users. When used in a team environment, gamification in the workplace has resulted in workers having greater commitment to their company and a stronger sense of belonging within their team.
Skill development: Using gamification in a learning environment improves a user’s ability to develop new skills. In fact, one study found that gamifying skill development led to improving a worker’s capacity to learn a new skill by 40%.
Cognitive development: Gamification helps improve the rate that brains process and maintain information. This means gamifying processes helps the development of how we think and solve problems.
Gamification is a very useful tool to encourage people to reach their goals. The most important factor though is to make it fun! That’s why, here at Ergonomyx, we want to promote these benefits with our Workplace Fitness app. The Ergonomyx app tracks how long you sit or stand at our smart Sit-and-Stand Desk, as well as how many calories you’ve burned, and the distance you’ve travelled on our smart Under-the-Desk Bike. To gamify your workplace fitness experience, you can compete and compare your scores with colleagues and friends! Our app helps you stay fit while having fun with your team and benefitting from the perks of gamification.
