Making training fun boosts skill retention. Transform your strategy with game-based learning to engage employees and improve results, writes James Micklethwait
With recent research highlighting learning support as the top strategy to boost employee retention, it’s clear that employees want to learn and grow their skills at work. However, many of the old standard methods of training – such as monologuing lectures with dry slide decks – have become ineffective at holding employees’ attention, which means employees aren’t learning the skills and information they need.
Game-based training can create win-win situations for a company and its employees, delivering experiences that authentically engage participants
This has become particularly problematic with the shift to learning virtually, with a recent Kahoot! Workplace Culture Report showing that employees say online training is the number one time they mentally tune out at work. Likewise, audience engagement remains the top challenge for presentations, one of the most common formats for training.
Upping your training game
For L&D professionals who want to drive stronger engagement in learning and design a strategy fit for our hybrid work reality, game-based training is a powerful method to improve both learning experience and outcomes in any context. By combining learning with friendly competition, trainers can foster active participation and increase employee motivation.
A recent survey confirmed the particular potency of this method, with 83% of employees saying they felt motivated during gamified training. This motivation in turn sharpens employees’ focus, while interactivity enables them to apply their learning immediately. Interestingly, Gabe Zichermann, co-author of Gamification by Design, has pointed to research showing that making work fun increased employee’s skill retention by 40%.
Get started building a winning game-based training strategy with these four tips:
1) Amplify the feedback loop
Game-based learning is a great way to give participants feedback, as the game experience shows the results of their actions right away. This can help employees better understand their strengths and what they may need to work on. At the same time, it can give the L&D team a treasure trove of information about employees.
Treat the training as a two-way conversation and listen to participants’ feedback, not just through formal comments at the end, but through the training experience data. Which parts had the highest levels of participation? Which questions did people get wrong? Were there any consistent knowledge gaps? In some cases, trainers can even respond in real time, explaining concepts employees don’t understand and reinforcing key messages.
2) Achieve more with goal stacking
One of the biggest challenges in L&D is balancing competing priorities: short-term versus long-term need, for instance, or technical skills training versus soft skills training. However, with game-based learning, trainers can work towards multiple goals at once. For example, a collaborative game experience can help employees build communication and teamwork while applying new technical skills.
A spotlight on the winning participant or team can also serve as employee recognition, especially when there are prizes involved. Over time, this creates a company culture of learning, engagement and job satisfaction, leading to higher retention as well as productivity and innovation. Pay attention to each step of the game-based training experience, and explore how you can optimise each one for maximum impact.
3) Make the experience the motivation with technology
Game elements such as wall leaderboards, trophies and badges can motivate employees to complete otherwise boring training, but why not transform the training itself? By using digital solutions to deliver training within an immersive game experience, trainers can captivate participants by tapping into intrinsic motivation – our natural instincts to play and compete.
Technology can also make designing and delivering game-based training much easier, especially with new innovations in artificial intelligence. Explore the digital tools available and look for flexible technology that allows you to experiment.
4) Build a learning culture all employees can nurture
With game-based training, you can empower employees across the organisation to be learning leaders, hosting learning sessions for their team with the support of user-friendly technology. This can unlock powerful knowledge sharing, enabling employees to keep each other up to date with relevant skills and information, rather than waiting for training from the L&D team. In this way, the game-based format makes it easier for L&D to scale formal learning initiatives in the wider organisation. Subject matter experts can create and deliver training while L&D retain oversight of all activity and data associated with it.
Game-based learning doesn’t need to stay only in formal training. Try embedding it in all kinds of work activities: all-hands and team meetings, presentations, events and beyond. Top learners and knowledge sharers can also be recognised through leaderboards and other rewards, further strengthening the company’s learning culture.
With a thoughtfully crafted strategy, game-based training can create win-win situations for a company and its employees, delivering experiences that authentically engage participants and multiply the impact of training far beyond a new high score.
James Micklethwait is VP Kahoot!
