Gamification results in increased collaboration
NTT Data launched a collaboration platform dubbed Socially three years ago, but only a measly 400 employees (out of 7,000 in the division) ever signed on, despite a concerted internal marketing effort. To try turning things around, the company made the portal into a game. “In the spirit of true online game design, we incorporated challenges, rules, points, badges, leaderboards, social media and, most importantly, incentives,” write NTT’s Imran Sayeed and Naurren Jeeraj in a Harvard Business Review blog case study. “By offering the employee (the “player”) a sense of purpose and aspiration to an otherwise mundane and boring task, now Socially delivered an alternative setting within the workplace for people to meet, collaborate, mentor and learn new skills.” Six months later, 4,000 employees were participating. Today, most of the company shares knowledge and builds relationships on the platform. It’s another example of smartly-applied gamification. Change efforts—like getting employees to adopt a new knowledge-sharing behavior—works when it is “designed around human nature—rather than enforcing a corporate appeal,” the pair assert.
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/10/how_to_collaborate_in_a_virtua.html
NTT DATA - HBR article about how gamification changed participation
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/02/how_a_game_got_our_global_empl.html