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In our focus

02.06.2021

Росица Диамандиева

Gamified trainings for development and engagement of employees

As a strategic HR partner of companies and talents in Bulgaria, Manpower’s focus follows the current needs of the market and the needs of our partners. At the beginning of 2021, this naturally led to the expansion of our portfolio with a new segment of services - Assert People Development, innovative training for workforce development. 

Rositsa Diamandieva, part of our Assert People Development team, will tell you more about the benefits of gamified training in a predominantly digital communication environment and what are their advantages over the long known traditional methods. 

One of the new pillars in Manpower's portfolio is Assert People Development. What exactly do these new services offer? 

With Assert Development, we opened an entirely new page in the field of human capital development with innovative services focused on employee retention and engagement. 

The big novelty here are the gamified trainings Gamelearn - an online platform for trainings in the form of video simulations. It offers various gamified trainings, which take the participant out of the standard business routine and place them in a parallel virtual environment with real situations and cases. 

Thus, the different Gamelearn games are applied to develop key skills such as leadership, team management, sales, negotiation, time management and more. 

How did you choose to include exactly gamified training in your services during a pandemic? 

The pandemic has further accelerated a trend we are observing in the past few years - a declining interest and effectiveness of the standard training formats. Lectures and seminars do not allow the participants to experiment or test solutions on their own, which negatively affects their motivation and also the learning outcomes. 

The need for new training tools was clear. The pandemic situation contributed to the fact that everyone became more open to new digital learning environments. From an interesting alternative they became an urgently needed solution, so companies could continue employee training and development programs remotely. 

We chose the gamified Gamelearn trainings because they meet all the new requirements - they guarantee commitment, motivation and efficiency from the comfort of our own home. In addition, the game format helps the training to not only be perceived as a fulfilment of an obligation, but also to be enjoyable and fun for the participants. 

Which training your clients and partners are most interested in? 

Currently most interest receive the simulations, through which complex skills can be trained. 

Let me give you an example - effective team management is based on successful delegation of responsibilities, giving feedback, employee motivation and others. Our partners often turn to us in search of a solution that will further develop this group of skills in their team leaders. 

In such situations, we recommend the gamified simulator Pacific, which mimics the daily life of a team leader with all its responsibilities and goals, with the difference that the participant takes on the role of leader of a shipwrecked group of people who must leave an uninhabited island within a certain time. Pacific is a clear example of how skills become tools that bring progress to the game and help the player reach his/her goal. 

What are the roots of gamification as a method and which are its biggest advantages when applied in professional training? 

There are references to "gamifying" online systems as early as 1980, but it was not until 2010 that the term became widely accepted in the sense that business now gives it. It has many advantages, but if we have to highlight the three most important, they would be: 

Engagement - imagine the game as a tool for designing systems that motivate people to do things. The reason for this is obvious - the human brain is originally associated with a desire to solve puzzles and riddles. Structuring trainings in gamified formats helps to transfer this level of commitment and motivation to carry out missions in the process of professional qualification and development. 

Experiment - mastering any game involves experimentation. If the format is effective - neither too difficult nor too easy - players are constantly motivated to strive for improvement by testing new and different approaches. The transfer of this practice in the work environment contributes to the development of an innovative spirit and the improvement of various processes and products in the organization. 

Results - and perhaps the most important benefit - gamification works! Although not yet established as a standard practice, a number of companies have reported significant positive results from the inclusion of game elements in their business processes. And not only technology companies from Silicon Valley, but also market veterans such as McDonald’s, Man, Nike and many others. 

How are gamifies training perceived by the participants? 

A big plus is that they do not feel like the subject of a development plan or program. This allows them to have fun while experimenting and working on their skills. The satisfaction assessment we conduct after the end of each training shows that 96% of people who have gone through Gamelearn training feel an improvement in the targeted skills and 95% of them would recommend such training to colleagues and friends. 

Our partners share that after the trainings the employees are visibly more engaged, contribute with more new ideas and even the mood in the teams is different - full of energy and striving for new achievements. Apart from the development of skills and qualification of the teams, such results also positively support the overall employer brand of the company and the way people perceive an organization. 

For further question get in touch directly with our Assert People Development Specialist - Rositsa Diamandieva ([email protected])