12 Best Examples of Gamification for Employee Engagement in 2024

Updated: February 01, 2024

Employee gamification is a great way to help engage your employees more than before and allows them a chance to work harder and be rewarded for it at the same time.

You can turn some of the tasks into a game, the important part here is to add some game-like elements into the day as well. When it comes to gamification for employee engagement in the workplace some key data points jump out:

• 87% of U.S. Workers responded that adding some elements of gamification to the workplace would help incentivize them and could help them be more productive as well.

• 80% of workers found that learning that was based on gamification helped them be more engaged when they got their work done compared to some of the traditional training.

• Employers will be happy too because gamification helps increase employee engagement by 60% and productivity by 50%, making it well-worth your time to add this into your business model as well.

Think about the impact that this gamification could have on your workplace and the amount of work that your employees would get done during the day. Rather than feeling like you have to pound in more work for your employees, you can turn it into a game and get more done as well. Let’s take a closer look at gamification and why it may be best for your employees.

What is gamification for employee engagement?

In the workplace, gamification for employee engagement applies game mechanics to traditional work to increase motivation, engagement, and productivity in a fun way.

The game mechanics often used in employee engagement gamification include points, levels, rewards, badges, leaderboards, and more.

Gamification can be applied to many aspects of an organization (e.g sales, marketing, customer loyalty, new hire onboarding) to make things...well...more engaging. With fun, rewards, and competitive elements often baked into a gamification strategy, organizations can leverage the fun of games and merge them with work tasks to create a more engaging experience for employees.

How to Use Gamification in Employee Engagement

Organizations are always pursuing high levels of employee engagement wherever possible because of the direct and indirect impacts on the business (e.g. reduced turnover, increased job satisfaction, fewer sick days, etc.).

Areas in organizations that have proven well-established results with gamification include sales, marketing, new hire onboarding, customer loyalty programs, customer service, training, and many others. Workflows with mundane tasks (e.g. sales, customer service) and areas where satisfaction is critical (e.g. onboarding, customer loyalty programs) are often great places to start implementing gamification strategies and tactics. Think about where these opportunities to motivate employees exist in your company and start there.

To get started implementing gamification in your workplace for employee engagement purposes, consider the following high-level steps:

1. Strategize: Identify the areas, departments, or tasks you want to gamify in your organization.
2. Select the proper game elements: which game-mechanic elements will resonate best with your workforce and tasks?
3. Identify goals: are there any key goals or outcomes you want to see? (e.g. more productivity, faster new hire onboarding, reduced turnover, etc.)
4. Communicate with management: Before rolling out your gamification strategy make sure to get key stakeholders informed and on board.
5. Communicate with employees: Inform employees about any changes to existing or new gamified programs.
6. Evaluate: Periodically reassess the effectiveness of programs and employee engagement scores.

Best Examples of Gamification for Employee Engagement

Gamification is a big trend that is making a change around the world of business. This method has been used in schools for some time now, but the same elements that help students to learn more could be utilized to engage your employees more and help them be more productive at the office each day.

There are a lot of different ways that you can add gamification to your work to engage your employees more than ever before. You just need to find the right one that is going to work for your business. Some of the best examples of gamification for employee engagement include:

1. Game-Based Learning

Employee training can get boring and difficult to work with. If you just keep on using the same methods that you did in the past, then you are going to find that the information may not stick and won’t be the best at all. Gamification can help make learning and training for your employees more engaging and interactive, helping them to retain the information better.

There are different ways that you can do this. Using trivia or a game to help them learn and giving them some points to make it easier for them to learn, kind of like a competition, can make a world of difference as well. You can take some of the boring things like training and turn it into a fun game that actually helps the employee learn better. 

2. On-the-Spot Recognition

When you take the time to do intermittent rewards, you can help increase the engagement of your employee by adding in a bit of spontaneity to the mix. Plus, these rewards, when unexpected, will make it more likely that employees can learn and repeat behaviors that are actually really good for your business.

You can choose how you would like to make this happen. You can do a certificate that you hand out when you notice an employee doing a good job on a project, or you can find another way to reward employees. Don’t have this set up on a specific schedule though. Pick out employees and praise them when you see them doing well. 

3. Interactive Leaderboards          

Next on the list is an interactive leaderboard. This one will bring in some friendly competition that can help employees to be more productive and adds some engagement for everyone. You can do a points-based leaderboard to help quantify and gamify the competition and can be a good option for top-performing employees and sales reps alike to see their progress.

4. Spin-to-Win Bonuses

Sometimes just some light-hearted fun is all that's needed to help engage employees around an activity at work. Spin-to-win type activities give everyone the chance to win something which can provide a quick and instant boost to engagement.

5. Social Media Recognition Platforms

Everyone is a big fan of social media and it is likely that your employees are utilizing it often. Rather than rebuffing it, you can make it a part of their work life as well. You can look through some social media-style recognition platforms to allow your employees to share things like shoutouts and likes. This can add some socialization to the recognition program as well.

6. Goal-Tracking Progress Bars 

Employees will become more engaged when they feel like they are reaching a goal and making some progress toward that goal. Both the sense of progress and the achievement aspect here are elements that need to be present in gamification.

To take advantage of this, you can go with some goal-tracking software that allows you and your employees to see how far they have gotten on their goals and see just how close they are to leveling up overall as well.

7. Badges for Achievement

In some cases, you will need to quantify and visualize the achievement in a way that others are able to see when the employee does a good job. This is where badging and other achievements like it will work. When your employees meet a certain goal or they do a good job on the work you assign them, provide a badge so others can see this as well.

8. Rewards for Company Competitions

Not all gamification techniques that you choose for your employees will be centered around them being more productive. Sometimes, you should allow them to kick back and have some fun as a company in order to improve the morale of your employees and help them to feel good about working with you.

There are different ways that you can do this. You can have a costume competition or a cook-off between the different departments of the business, allowing the employees to compete against one another and earn some rewards or another item along the way. 

9. Competition Between Employees

You can also take the time to work on having a competition between employees. This works well for the sales team when you would like to get so many sales by the end of the month or the end of the year. You can have a board put up to show how far each one is and to encourage everyone to see where they fall. Have a good prize available to help with that too.

10. Employee of the Month

While we talked before about having a recognition program that is going to help you with the spontaneous recognition of your employees, you may also think about doing an employee of the month program. This one is known about ahead of time, but you can have rewards for those who work hard and reach this goal at the end of the month.

You can take this further and have something in place for someone who works hard throughout the year as well, with an employee of the year reward as well. Let the employees know what the requirements are for reaching either of these milestones and what they can “win” when they get to that part as well. Then let the games begin and see what everyone will do.

11. Qualification-Based Travel

Help incentivize the work that your employees do by offering travel to the ones who do well. Those who work really hard and meet some of the company goals will be able to qualify for an exclusive travel promotion from you.

Having limited, high-stakes rewards are going to be important for gamification and getting your employees engaged as well. You will need to set the goals and make sure that each segment of the business will have something important to aspire to.

12. Employee Points Reward Programs

If you would like to find a gamification option that will work well for all employees, then having a points reward program could be a good choice. While the other examples are going to work well on their own, they are even better when you decide to incorporate them into their own incentive program for your employees as well.

Choosing the Right Gamification for Your Employees

Engaging your employees is important if you would like to make sure that they are productive and have more satisfaction in the workplace. When you bring gamification into the office, you can find a neat way to help employees receive the recognition they desire, while making the work more fun. Take a look at some of the tips above to see how you can get this done.