Gamification in organizations fails when it starts with the mechanics...
Someone decides the new training rollout or change initiative needs badges or streaks, and then once done, the adoption still doesn't go up... and the leadership thinks.. this gamification thing doesn't work.
But that's like saying medicine doesn't work because you prescribed something before diagnosing the patient.
Gamification is really just a way for designing motivation into how people experience something.. when of course the want to do it (they are motivated and the conditions make it possible)
There is a framework called Octalysis, created by Yu-kai Chou, that breaks motivation down into 8 core drivers.. which I like... let me walk through a few of the ones that I align most with:
-Meaning
People need to feel like the change connects to something bigger than the task, if you're asking someone to adopt a new process and they can't see why it matters beyond leadership decided this... you've already lost them.. this is the driver most change programs assume is covered by a town hall and a vision slide.
-Accomplishment People want to feel progress, not fake progress like a badge that says you completed module 3... real progress. Can they see that the new way of working is actually making their day better? If the only feedback loop is a quarterly engagement survey, you've got a 90 day gap where people have no idea if what they're doing is working.
-Empowerment This is about giving people agency in how the change happens... not just telling them what to do...when people feel like they have choices and can shape the process, adoption goes up, however, when they feel like it's being done to them, resistance goes up. Unintentionally change programs design for compliance and then wonder why there's no ownership.
-Social influence What the people around you are doing matters more than what the comms plan says, if your team lead isn't doing the new thing... you're probably not going to either. This driver is about norms, mentoring, social proof, and the reality that behavior is contagious in organizations... for better or worse.
Here's the thing though... none of these drivers should be your starting point, because you still have to diagnose the what is going on first.
Gamification tactics are interventions in the area of motivation... and like any intervention, they only work if and when motivation is the issue and when all the other conditions are there to make the behavior happen.
Have you ever tried using gamification mechanics in a change or learning program? What happened?