Argentina
Attracting Top Talent through Gamification
Defining gamification
Gamification is the practice of adding gaming principles to the daily activities of an organisation’s employees and has uses that expand across the recruitment and retention of top talented individuals. Organisations that have implemented gamification practices experience a wealth of benefits including increased levels of employee engagement and job satisfaction. “The Future Of Gamification Report” has even associated gamification with increased creativity levels, motivation, participation, and learning amongst employees.
This, along with the associated increase in visibility and openness, is the driving force behind the growing interest in gamification’s use within an organisational context. Whilst gamification is known to be useful in improving engagement levels amongst current employees, its value extends beyond the company’s boundaries and can be used to engage and recruit top talented individuals.
More than just a game
Gamification can prove to have many uses during the recruitment process. One of the ways that it can be utilised is by establishing a gamification initiative designed to engage and attract top talented individuals, particularly amongst Millennials. For example, PwC in Hungary launched a free game that simulates the average day in an accounting and consulting firm in an attempt to better attract college graduates. The game can be accessed through platforms such as Facebook and appeals to the Millennial need for quick accesses to information, social media interaction, and developing themselves through the internet. PwC has noted a 78% increase in interest to work at their company over the last few years following people’s participation in the game. Not only does this interest attract more potential candidates, it gives the organisation a desirable brand image that will appeal to the top talented individuals that they aim to attract.
Gamification is not only useful in engaging with potential employees, it can also be used to test if they have the relative skills and capabilities necessary to perform the job. By using gamification to simulate real-life scenarios, organisations are able to predict how a potential employee would respond to the various situations they might face once they start working there and thus acts as a success predictor for future performance.
When using gamification to assess the abilities of a candidate, it is important to remember to test them for the skills specifically needed for the job. The value that gamification can bring to an organisation is only as effective as it is relevant. Organisations should ensure that their gamification initiative has a clear goal and measurable outcomes before launching it to ensure that it remains relevant and valuable amongst the target users. Without having a clear vision in mind, gamification efforts can easily be misplaced and ultimately provide organisations with irrelevant insights and engagements that cannot be translated into organisational success further down the line.
Benefiting both Company and Candidate
Gamification can be used to benefit both the organisations that utilise it and the candidates that participate in the initiative. In terms of benefiting the candidate, gamification might inspire them to become involved in an industry that they initially perceived as being unknown or undesirable. By providing candidates with a platform to gain real insight into what it would be like to work in a certain industry, organisations are providing the individuals with the ability to assess whether or not the reality of a job is aligned to their expectations. This not only enables the candidate to make a better informed career decision, it provides organisations with more quality applicants from those interested in working for them, often irrespective of whether or not there are vacancies advertised.
By creating platform that aligns itself with the interests of talented individuals, organisations are able to save valuable resources during their recruitment processes because they have already established an engagement with the people that they are attempting to attract. Their efforts are further supported through gamification by exposing potential employees to the kind of culture and environment present in the organisation, enabling both organisation and candidate to assess their fit with one another. These factors allow organisation to attract highly talented individuals, within a reduced time period, who have already demonstrated their ability to thrive whilst successfully contributing to the organisations bottom line.
Lastly, gamification can be used when assessing a candidates’ potential to perform. Through factors such as badges and achievements, which are systematically awarded as the player advances through the levels of a game, organisations are able to get a realistic and subjective summary of the individual’s performance in their previous roles. This gives an indication as to the candidate’s ability to successfully perform, allowing organisations to predict their future contributions to the roles they fulfill.
The popularity of gamification in organisations is as a result of it playing to the competitive nature that is present in most people. This component often translates into the player becoming ‘addicted’ to the game as people want to see how far they can advance and how many rewards they can achieve. By incorporating gamification principles into the recruitment process, organisations are able to engage and attract top talented individuals whilst simultaneously using the games to assess their abilities and skills. This allows them to employ only the best who have proven their value and fit with the organisation, inevitably translating into a unified workforce that is able to achieve high productivity levels and ultimately benefit the employees and organisation as a whole.
