The Upsides And Downsides For Employees In A 'Gamified Workplace'

Can 'work hard' and 'play hard' coexist in the workplace?

By Mark Travers, Ph.D. | April 25, 2024

After the "Great Resignation" following the Covid-19 pandemic, organizations sought to imbue work with greater purpose, engagement and excitement, and many turned to workplace gamification as a solution.

This approach has gained momentum over the past few years, especially in a technological era where innovation is paramount. Gamification has emerged as a dominant force in many leading businesses globally, with significant popularity among tech industries and startups in the United States.

TalentLMS' 2019 Gamification survey revealed that 89% of employees felt more productive in a gamified workplace.

The Allure Of Workplace Gamification

Workplace gamification is the application of game design elements and principles in non-game contexts, particularly within a work environment. It involves incorporating game-like features such as points, badges, leaderboards, challenges and rewards into systems to motivate employees, enhance engagement and employee retention and encourage desired behaviors.

A gamified workspace aims to make work more enjoyable, increase productivity, foster collaboration and promote learning and skill development.

Workplace gamification has been proven to help in areas like:

Employee engagement. Workplace gamification enhances engagement through intrinsic motivators, feedback and rewards. It makes tedious tasks more engaging and fosters a dynamic environment. It also improves goal visibility, clarity and motivation.
Productivity. Gamification boosts productivity through real-time tracking of task progress, clarity in goals and instant reward and sense of achievement after completing assigned tasks.
Skill-based development. Through gamified training modules, employees can engage in interactive simulations, challenges and quests that require them to apply and refine specific skills. Feedback mechanisms built into gamification platforms allow employees to receive immediate reinforcement and guidance as they progress, facilitating faster learning and skill acquisition. According to the 2019 survey, 78% of respondents expressed a greater willingness to work for a company that had implemented a gamified recruitment process.

How Gamification Goes Wrong In Certain Workplaces

"The advantages of introducing gamification in the workplace are clear: it makes work feel less like a chore. However, poorly designed gamification may make the play feel like just another task on the "to-do" list. Critics argue that gamification can be misleading and may be a tool for controlling workers," explains Nick Butler, Associate Professor at Stockholm Business School.

In their recent paper published in the Journal of Business Ethics, researchers Nick Butler and Sverre Spoelstra discuss the inherently ambivalent nature of workplace gamification. The concealed aspects of workplace gamification encompass:

Exploitation and manipulation. Gamification techniques, such as reward systems and leaderboards, can be designed to manipulate or exploit employees, leading to increased stress, burnout and a sense of control.
Privacy concerns. Gamification often involves collecting and analyzing data on employee behavior and performance. This data collection can raise privacy concerns, potentially leading to employee distrust.
Negative impact on intrinsic motivation. Excessive use of gamification elements, such as extrinsic rewards, can undermine employees' intrinsic motivation and autonomy, reducing their enjoyment and satisfaction at work.
Unintended consequences. Gamification may have unintended consequences, such as fostering unhealthy competition among employees, creating a culture of favoritism or reinforcing stereotypes and biases. For example, within Disneyland's gamified system, the live display of each employee's productivity on leaderboards led to unintended consequences. It inadvertently sparked competition among them, ultimately undermining their collaborative culture.
Loss of authenticity. By gamifying work tasks, there is a risk of reducing the authenticity and meaningfulness of the work itself, as employees may focus more on achieving rewards or points rather than engaging with the task for its inherent value.
Ethical dilemmas. "Ethical considerations arise when gamification enhances engagement without addressing underlying workplace issues, such as low pay or hazardous conditions," explains Nick Butler. Gamification can raise ethical dilemmas regarding fairness, transparency and balancing organizational goals and employee well-being.

Caution While Implementing Workplace Gamification

While proper implementation of workplace gamification can enhance employee satisfaction, engagement and productivity, it is paramount not to overlook essential factors such as:

Establishing the foundation. Workplace gamification cannot replace the minimum standards required for a productive and happy workplace, such as fair pay, healthy work-life balance and ensuring conducive working conditions such as adequate lighting and proper ventilation.
Cultural cohesion. A unified work environment, marked by positivity and alignment with the company's values promotes growth. Compatibility among colleagues and a shared sense of purpose further bolsters workplace harmony and efficacy.
Meaningfulness of work. A 2018 study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology suggests that meaningful work entails a broader purpose, serving more excellent, reasonable or prosocial goals while also facilitating self realization, autonomy, authenticity and self-expression at work. Relying solely on gamification risks overlooking the more profound sense of purpose and belonging that meaningful work provides, potentially leading to superficial engagement and dissatisfaction in the long run.

"Gamification may give the illusion of meaningful work without addressing its root causes—systemic issues that cannot be papered over with a video game interface. A truly happy workplace is better achieved through genuine human connections, fair pay and decent working conditions. Meaningful work comes from being surrounded by colleagues who genuinely care about each other as individuals rather than as digital avatars or competitors on a leaderboard," concludes Nick Butler.

Unsure if your workplace would qualify as a "psychologically safe" environment? Take the evidence-based Psychological Safety Scale to learn more.

A similar version of this article can also be found on Forbes.com, here.