Gamification — How to level up all your training skills

Have you ever felt bored during a training or at school? What if we could solve this boredom while improving everyone’s efficiency?

There’s a simple and well-documented way: gamification

In theory, gamification is the process of incorporating game mechanics — like points, rewards, challenges, and leaderboards — into non-game contexts to motivate participation, engagement, and loyalty. It has become an essential component of modern digital strategies, especially in business, education, and employee development.

To keep it simple, it’s when a training, a course, or any activity is put into a game or has an element in it that is used in games; gamification uses game mechanics and storytelling to increase implication and improve engagement.

photo by Victor Gambart

Gamification has been increasingly implemented in companies, as it is a formidable tool for a 50% increase in productivity and a 60% increase in employee engagement. In theory, gamification uses what psychologists call “compulsion loops”, that is to say, a loop from encouraging someone to take action, rewarding them for it, and then motivating them to take action again.

This process thrives on psychological principles such as self-determination theory by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, a theory that emphasizes autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

Now, with the integration of digitalised apps and AI, gamification has become much easier

photo by Victor Gambart

Many digital tools are now used for training or for learning :

Apps like Quizlet or Duolingo are now used by individuals to learn in a gamified manner independently, demonstrating that gamification can be beneficial for self-motivation in learning. Also, it’s not rare to see gamification tools like Kahoot used in training or courses.

There are also examples of brands using gamification to create employee engagement

The drug brand AstraZeneca launched a gamified digital system called “Go to Jupiter” to train 500 sales representatives, achieving a 97% engagement rate and 95% completion rate on the online course, often outside of working hours.

photo by Victor Gambart

And so, gamification actively accelerates training efficiency and the adoption of new tools within companies by making the process engaging and fun. Instead of passively introducing digital tools, organizations can now create gamified onboarding and learning environments that reward progress and implication.

We have interviewed Noé Fagnou, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in gamification and is currently working at Ubisoft.

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According to him, even though gamification is indeed a powerful process, it lacks the support of some higher-ups in numerous companies, who view it as a game rather than a professional process that improves people’s motivation and engagement.

Moreover, the gamification process is, according to him, very hard to implement “without an external facilitator that[…] knows the gamification process”. Thus making it hard to implement in companies currently, even if we all see small gamification processes every day.

That’s why, even if gamification is a powerful tool, it’s only through the facilitation of the implementation of this process in internal training that it can be considered a common way of doing. AI tools and digital apps are good facilitation tools

And you? What do you think about gamification? Have you already tried a gamified course? Or have you even gamified a training before? Let me know in the comments below.

About this article

This article has been written by a student on the Grenoble Ecole de Management’s Advanced Masters in Digital Strategy Management. As part of a content creation assignment, students are given the task of writing articles based on their digital interests and disseminating the articles online. Articles are marked but we make minimal changes to the content. Thanks for reading! James Barisic, Programme Director, MS DSM.