The implementation of mechanisms within the training, making it possible to incorporate games or challenges to push participants to reach certain goals and objectives, is a strategy technically known as “Gamification”.
The overall purpose of training is to inspire learning in such a way that participants can exploit it in specific scenarios to reach goals, both individual and organizational.
However, and despite the benefits it offers, participants often have a natural resistance to training for a variety of reasons, some are related to issues of attitude, motivation, or interest. This leads us to ask the talent development area a fundamental question: How can you foster the attitude, motivation, and interest of participants so they will engage in training?
One way to carry this out is by implementing mechanisms within the training, making it possible to incorporate games or challenges to push participants to reach certain goals and objectives, and to reward them—either tangibly or intangibly—when they achieve them. This strategy is technically known as “Gamification.”
This resource has the main objective of establishing a way to get participants to do what we need them to do (in terms of training, of course), creating a sense of certainty in them that they are doing it on their own initiative.
To explain this better, let’s take a look at the following examples:
This case shows us how the use of the concrete stairs was incentivized by building a giant piano on them (game element) so people would exercise more (goal to achieve), always giving users the choice to reach the next floor the way they wanted. (This cultivated a sense of certainty within them that they decided to do it themselves.) The result is to combat sedentary lifestyles and gain physical improvements and better health (reward).
In this case, we can observe how a healthy diet is promoted among families by holding a competition (game element) to form healthy eating habits (goal to achieve), always having the option to select other foods that are not recommended (free choice). The result (reward) is taking care of one’s health in the long term by combatting obesity, diabetes, and other issues.
As we can see, the topic of “gamification” has components with a lot of creativity and innovation, and they can be implemented in many scenarios… How do you think it could work in your next training project?
About the author:
Luis Arteaga is the operations director at Mi Cursor. In his 15+ years of experience, he has taken part in the successful design, development, and implementation of over 100 eLearning training projects.
