Boosting Team Engagement through Gamification: Mitigating the Effects of Social Loafing

Developed by Francesco Magnani- s230227

Abstract

Gamification has recently attracted the attention of academics, educators, and practitioners from a number of fields. The idea of "gamification" is not new, It has been a trend in the business and marketing sectors for the past several years. Clarifying the terminology and ideas surrounding “Gamification” is one contribution of this study .

Using gamification in a project, program, and portfolio management is becoming increasingly popular as a way to reduce social loafing and improve team performance. This paper provides a theory of work gamification that positions it as a planned improvement to the conventional practice of performance management in order to establish real-time access to performance data.

Gamification is the process of integrating game principles and components into real-world settings like the workplace and commerce. Workplace gamification, on the other hand, does not entail turning work into a game; rather, it involves integrating game elements to motivate and guide desirable employee behavior. Points, levels, badges, leaderboards and avatars are game elements that are frequently linked to gamification. Gamification in this context aims to instil a sense of accountability and competition among team members, hence lowering the tendency for social loafing, in which individuals do not fully contribute to the group effort .

This article provides an in-depth overview of what Gamification is and how it can be applied in a work context so as to improve performance both by the individual and the collectivity of work groups; The article is divided into the following sections:

1. What is Gamification and its purpose.

2. Gamification in Project Management.

3. Principles of Gamification in Enterprise Systems:

4. Applying Gamification Design Elements and the main limitations.

5. The motivational power of game design elements

6. Case Study

7. Conclusion.

The paper also gives an annotated bibliography of meaningful readings to aid firms in applying Gamification in Project, program, and portfolio management.

What is Gamification and its purpose

Over the last 15 years, there has been a significant increase in the usage of digital games in entertainment, and how they have become such a vital part of our popular culture that it has become an academic topic of study. Sales of consoles and the increasingly popular online multiplayer environments are at historic highs due to the popularity of digital games in the entertainment sector. These themes have sparked research on their effects and relevance in the digital era, as well as the benefits of the digital gaming medium have encouraged its use in endeavours beyond pure enjoyment. This concept is called “Gamification “, it is the technique of incorporating game-like components into non-game activities to boost motivation and engagement, they are made to exploit human psychology in a similar manner to how games do .

Gamification can be used at work to increase team performance by making work more engaging and exciting, as well as to make mundane tasks more enjoyable, so that team members perform better, feel more motivated, and connect with one another more effectively, Gamification strategies have recently been used by companies across industries to improve performance and increase employee engagement .

Due to its capacity to increase motivation and reduce social loafing, gamification can substantially impact team performance. It can be utilized specifically in the workplace for instance introducing challenges, awards, and recognition programs. Motivation is the internal force that drives people to carry out tasks and achieve their goals. Gamification can increase motivation by creating a more enjoyable and rewarding work environment. When people are part of a larger group, they are less inclined to contribute to group activities, and a behaviour known as social loafing occurs. Gamification can decrease societal laziness by motivating people to take responsibility for their labour and compete with one another .

However, there is no universally accepted definition of gamification yet, attempts to define "gamification" are hampered by the term's ambiguous usage, which also highlights its diversity. This blurs the distinction between systems that use or are fully-fledged games and systems that contain certain features of games and raises concerns about the actual differences between gamification and games. There is minimal agreement on its theoretical foundations and scope. Nevertheless, despite the dearth of empirical evidence and best practices for design and implementation, several attempts have been made to capitalize on the purported motivating benefits of gamification approaches. The varied use of the term "gamification," which resulted in a range of false positives that expressed comparable but different concepts, was a significant issue in locating acceptable sources. The conceptual immaturity of gamification and this disagreement among researchers present a chance for further investigation of gamification as a topic of study, a method of design, and a phenomenon that is mediated by computers .

Gamification in Project Management

In the field of project management, one of the challenges is staff motivation, so it is imperative to improve employee motivation. Since motivation affects employee performance, it is critical to find solutions to address this issue, and this article will explore the application of gamification in this field to solve this problem. By continuously monitoring employee progress, it has been possible to evaluate the effectiveness of the model, paying particular attention to gamification as a tool to motivate and monitor the performance of project team members through the gamification of the Enterprise System. However, no methodology blends traditional and iterative practices, and none focuses specifically on staff motivation, so we will try to extrapolate the various concepts to give a clear view of the benefits that gamification can bring .

Gamification can be used, from a project management standpoint involves introducing features of games like points, leaderboards, challenges, prizes, and feedback into project work, and can assist project managers in:

1. Improve team performance: Gamification may increase the fun and engagement of project tasks, enhancing team members' performance and productivity .

2. Encourage teamwork and collaboration: Gamification can motivate team members to cooperate to accomplish shared objectives, encouraging teamwork and collaboration .

3. Raise motivation: Gamification can increase motivation and encourage desired behaviours among team members by offering challenges, recognition, and rewards .

4. Foster ongoing skill development: Gamification can be utilized to allow team members to develop their knowledge and abilities, which will help the project's success .

5. Increase user engagement and adoption: Gaming can boost user engagement and adoption of project tools and systems by making a project work more entertaining .

6. Track and evaluate progress: Gamification may give project managers insightful data about team performance and progress, empowering them to make wise choices and modify their strategy as necessary .

Principles of Gamification in Enterprise Systems

Enterprise systems are now essential to how an organization runs. Enterprise technologies might not provide the strategic or competitive advantages that firms want if they are not used effectively. “Based on a review of the literature on gamification, eight basic principles of Gamification are identified: Challenge (C), Interactivity (I), Goal Orientation (G), Social Connectivity (S), Competition (C), Achievement (A), Reinforcement (R), and Fun Orientation (F). We termed them the CIG-SCARF principles of gamification” .

Figure1:Gamification-Principles and Design Elements

Challenge(C) and Interactivity(I): Collaboration among different functions is essential for the successful implementation of an enterprise system. The challenge principles (C) and (I) can be used to encourage communication and cooperation by posing problems and challenges to cross-functional teams and providing quick feedback, giving users rapid and accurate feedback is crucial because it encourages user engagement with the system, which is a prerequisite for flow. Moreover, after awarding points or badges, finishing tasks, or responding to other recent occurrences, feedback in the form of alerts may surface. Notifications can also be used to recommend subsequent actions or other relevant content. These activities can be structured as research that encourages team members to communicate and collaborate; It is something that presents opportunities for growth, learning, and development. A moderate and fair degree of difficulty in the tasks can be produced in a corporate setting to encourage learning, problem-solving, and creativity, the enterprise system's challenges should be seen as possibilities for users to expand their knowledge and skills, which will inspire them to work more. As a high level of challenge can lead to anxiety or irritation and a low level of challenge can lead to boredom or indifference, the degree of the challenge will need to be adequately determined .

Goal orientation(G), the process of gamifying work through an orientation to a mission or task, has many benefits. These goals in gamified systems serve the purpose of guiding users on what actions to take and what behaviors are valued. These goals should provide users with new and exciting challenges to undertake. Sub-goals may also be included within individual goals, allowing users to achieve minor accomplishments(A) while working towards larger missions. To introduce users to a new system, onboarding missions can be created to encourage them to explore different features. To promote social interactions and a sense of community, team-based goals can be implemented, which require multiple users to work together. Another type of goal involves completing specific missions within a given time frame, adding a time-pressure element to the challenge .

Social Connectivity(S) generates shared objectives and a sense of significance, improving intrinsic motivation for system use; This promotes the flow state's three essential components of focused concentration, temporal distortion, and happiness .

Reinforcement(R) is focused on offering performance-based rewards, in accordance with Skinner's operant conditioning, where positive rewards incentivize behaviour repetition. Creating interest, curiosity, and enjoyment in a task or environment is referred to as fun orientation(F), and it is associated with increased intrinsic motivation and engagement .

Applying Gamification Design Elements

The medium used to apply these CIG-SCARF principles are Design elements; the use of game-like elements such as avatars, points, badges and leaderboards can help to provide a more immersive and engaging experience for team members, resulting in increased productivity and better project outcomes, the game design elements sustain the eight gamification principles discussed. This section will delve deeper into the use of these elements in project management and their application in motivating and engaging teams. Consider the following seven key design game elements: points, levels, badges, leaderboards, quests, avatars, and foreplay. These elements can be used to increase team member engagement and motivation, provide a sense of accomplishment and recognition, and encourage competition and collaboration. Each element will explain, giving an example of its application in project management provided .

Avatars

Avatars are graphical representations of people or groups that can be used to customize the gamification experience. Avatars can give people a sense of identity and ownership, which can be powerful motivators for teams and individuals. They are widely used in gaming and have been shown to improve the overall gaming experience as well as increase motivation and engagement. Avatars can be used in gamification to represent individual team members or teams, providing a visual indicator of progress and achievement. A team's avatar, for example, can change as it advances through levels or completes specific tasks, providing a clear sense of accomplishment and recognition. Avatars can also be used to encourage team competition and collaboration by representing top-performing teams or individuals with higher-level or more visually impressive avatars. Avatars can be used to create interactivity(I), social connectivity(S), and fun elements .

Points as feedback and reward

Points are a fundamental component of gamification related to the enterprise system, and they are typically awarded for successfully completing activities in the gamified environment. A points and rewards system is a gamification technique that incentivizes individuals or teams to achieve specific goals or milestones. Different types of points, such as experience points, redeemable points, or reputation points, can be distinguished, and they serve to numerically represent a player's progress. One of the most important functions of points is to provide feedback by measuring players' in-game behavior and serving as continuous and immediate feedback and reward. The number of points represents the importance or scope of the tasks, it is critical to carefully design point systems to value user actions. If typical work tasks are difficult to compare, different organizational units may use different point systems. Users can also share points with one another to recognize outstanding achievements, creating an altruistic dynamic. Point systems can be extended to user levels, with the user rising when he or she reaches a predefined point limit. Points provide critical information to both the user and the system operator. Users receive immediate feedback on their progress, while operators can track, evaluate, and reward user performance using points .

Limitations of the Points System

One limitation of the point system is that it may not be appropriate for all types of tasks or activities. For example, if the goal is to encourage creative thinking, a point system may not be appropriate. In these cases, a more open-ended approach to gamification may be more effective [3]. Another limitation is that Users may be motivated to complete a greater number of tasks in order to earn points under the point system, leading them to prioritize quantity over quality and ignore the impact or quality of their work, which could result in a decrease in overall performance and a lack of creativity and innovation .

Badge and Levels

Badges are used in gamification environments as visual representations of achievements that can be earned and collected. These badges serve a variety of functions, including confirming the player's accomplishments, symbolizing their merits, and visibly displaying their achievement of levels or goals. The levels, which represent intermediate goals, serve as milestones, and badges are awarded to indicate a certain level of achievement. A badge may be awarded based on a specific number of points or on specific activities within the game. Badges perform several functions, including serving as goals when the player is aware of the requirements for winning them and serving as virtual status symbols. Badges, like points, provide feedback by indicating how the players performed. In general, badges serve no other purpose than those stated. Furthermore, because of their visual component (the badge itself) and the included descriptions of the goal and how to unlock a badge, they may be accompanied by narrative elements and challenges that have been shown to elicit intrinsic motivations. Because badges set clear goals, one effect of using them has been linked to their ability to guide user behavior. It has been asserted that badges serve as a guidance mechanic in service, providing the user with an idea of how the service is intended to be used and what is expected of the user, thereby increasing the amount and quality of actions within a service. Another reason for gamification is to capitalize on the persuasive power that emerges when people compare their points and badges with one another, effectively benchmarking themselves. This phenomenon is known as a social comparison .

Limitations of Badges

One of the limitations of badges in gamification, according to Kapp [9], is their ineffectiveness in complex or open-ended tasks. Because such tasks necessitate greater autonomy and decision-making power, badges may not be an appropriate motivator for users who may require more intrinsic or social forms of motivation to feel engaged. As a result, it may be necessary to supplement the use of badges with other forms of gamification, such as leaderboards or social recognition, in these types of tasks to provide a more nuanced and personalized approach to motivation. Furthermore, badges may be perceived as superficial or arbitrary, resulting in a lack of engagement or even resentment of the gamification program .

Leaderboards

Leaderboards are competitive progress indicators that rank players based on their relative success, as measured against a specific success criterion. They aid in determining who excels at a particular activity, leaderboards are effective motivators when there are only a few points separating players from the next level or position, but they can be demotivators when players find themselves at the bottom of the leaderboard. Leaderboard competition can put social pressure on players to increase their level of engagement, which can boost participation and learning. These positive effects of competition, however, are more likely if the competitors are performing at the same level. Leaderboards can be used to rank users based on measurable characteristics such as points or levels, encouraging user competition and fostering engagement .

Limitations of Leaderboards

However, when implementing leaderboards, certain factors must be considered. For example, the highest ranks may appear unattainable in rankings with thousands of users, discouraging users from participating. Likewise, new users may find it difficult to catch up with long-time users who have accumulated many points. To avoid such demotivation, the representation of leaderboards can be changed. For example, multiple leaderboards with different time periods or contexts can be used to allow users in the back to compete for the top spots. Furthermore, users can be chosen in a specific context to compare themselves to friends, work colleagues, or departments. In some corporates, a short clip of the leaderboard can also be displayed, showing the user's current position as well as the positions of a few other users directly above and below them. Finally, rankings can be waived in areas where cooperation is desired to avoid negative competition .

the motivational power of game design elements

From a motivational and psychological standpoint, the Self-Determination Theory(SDT) has been used to explain the role of design elements like points, levels, badges and leaderboards in gamification. The STD is a motivational theory that distinguishes between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation; Intrinsic motivation is defined as doing a task because it is intrinsically satisfying, whereas extrinsic motivation is defined as performing an action because it results in a separable outcome. By incorporating these elements, gamification through STD can help to meet three basic psychological needs, autonomy(2), competence(1), and relatedness(3), which are required for intrinsic motivation and well-being.

1. Competency requirements can be met through the use of points, levels, badges, or leaderboards.

2. Experiences of decision freedom and task meaningfulness are two aspects of the need for autonomy. Avatars are important in the first aspect (autonomy in terms of freedom of decision), because they give players a choice.

3. A sense of relevance can be evoked by emphasizing the importance of the players' actions for the group's performance, for example, a shared goal, which can be conveyed within a meaningful story, can also foster experiences of social relatedness .

Case study “Trogon”

How Gamification can be applied to a project management system. To increase employee motivation and engagement; An exciting solution has been implemented to Gamify “Trogon” a project management system. The Trogon PMS's gamification layer was contained within a module to enable successful implementation. Trogon PMS's gamified version includes the three primary gamification components of the leaderboard, badge board, and project forest. These components have different functions.

First, rankings promote a culture of competitiveness among individual employees and help identify the winner of the game who can receive additional rewards. However, some studies suggest that leaderboards may diminish job performance instead of improving it because they make employee performance public and visible to everyone in the workplace. To solve this problem, rankings merely display differences between players rather than actual numbers. While the points and levels accumulated by employees can only be displayed privately, so as not to demoralize those who are not as effective..

Badges in this implementation are identified as merit awards to the worker and are obtained through the achievement of a certain level (Houses in the photo) and a certain skill obtained by the worker based on tot tasks completed. These public awards make the work environment much more stimulating as the worker's prestige and flexibility are derived in part from them.

The project forest presents a more intuitive and visually appealing way to track project progress, with unoccupied plots representing incomplete tasks and trees symbolizing completed tasks. This visual representation can be engaging and easier to understand for both project managers and team members, allowing them to quickly assess the complexity and timing of activities and compare the performance of different team members. This visualization is not intended to be a replacement for the Gantt chart, which employs a linear representation of activities and deadlines. Instead, it seeks to provide an alternate tool that is easier to use and more dynamic for individuals who are unfamiliar with the Gantt chart. Alternatively, to provide the project manager with a more effective perspective of the project in order to accelerate decision-making on resource allocation and management. .

Conclusion

In conclusion, in today's fast-changing work environment, gamification has become a powerful tool for increasing performance and engagement. The use of game design elements can help organizations inspire and guide staff toward achieving goals. Project management can also benefit from using gamification to increase team engagement, streamline communication, and allocate resources more efficiently. However, gamification is not a panacea for all business problems, and this must be understood. The context of a situation can influence how gamification works in various ways, including the target audience, the use of design elements, and the culture of the workplace in general. However, like any game, gamification can lose its effectiveness over time. In order to keep users engaged and the team competing, project managers must innovate by offering new rewards, challenges, and tasks consistently rather than discontinuously. Gamification has the ability to radically change the way we work, but to be effective it must be carefully considered and constantly modified. In the end, it is up to companies and their managers to intelligently use gamification's ability to increase employee performance, engagement and productivity. However, like any game, gamification can lose its appeal over time. To keep users engaged and the team competing, project managers must innovate by offering new rewards, challenges, and tasks.