Workplace training at a company that takes place in a classroom situation has gone out of fashion with employers and employees in the workplace. Today’s work structures and agile work-flows call for e-learning methods that can be integrated more flexibly into employees’ working lives. The amount of case studies generated about the effects of gamification and gamified techniques of learning progress make it one of the hottest topics amongst education researchers for the engagement of the workforce. As far back as 2012, there were more than 125 empirical studies and examples identifying the possible effects of gamification on goals in different contexts, and the number has been rising every year since.
According to an AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) survey, 47% of adults aged 50 and older reportedly play some sort of game once a day. Meanwhile the younger millennial generation has grown up with digital gaming and the gamification of life itself. Devices are their natural habitat, so they are more accepting of digital learning, receiving rewards and badges and performance gamification than traditional corporate training with its Power Point presentations and textbooks. New digital technologies offer diverse and entertaining new ways to engage learning via games. In recent years there has been a growing trend for the integration of game-related learning into workplace training performance programmes, with a focus on play and discovery-based learning in the team.
Adding typical gamified elements to training programmes at companies leads to significant improvements in the engagement of participants and their team: They keep the newlylearned information longer in memory, because the brain retains exciting situations with a competitive element to the learners, such as developing goals and scoring points in games, better than stressful situations, like needing to pass an exam in front of a superior at training. A gamification study conducted by J. Dunlosky in 2013 shows that gamified learning can only be successful on performance if students play for an extended amount of time, so that they process enough information to learn. Studies also indicatet hat regular practice is even more effective when gaining knowledge or learning a new skill which is why it’s useful to reiterate the content with regular refresher programmes for employees. Lawpilots online training programmes for business offer a wide variety of learning methods and covering workplace related topics like data protection. They can be combined with refresher courses for learners that include the most recent updates on relevant topics and can be taken one year after the original course in the business workplace.
Generally, gamification is intended to invoke the same psychological experiences that playing games evokes in employees.
Since engagement is crucial to learning using gamification to teach corporate content is a great way to keep your employees’ motivation and focus at the highest social level. In particular using image- or video-based content elements can providea welcome change to employees’ normal work days.
One can use competitive, multi-player games or single player programmes, depending on the workplace context, the goals and the content to be taught.
If one wants employees to learn about compliance for instance, work-related situations can be demonstrated along with decision-making elements, so that participants are encouraged to think through each situation and will remember the appropriate solution afterwards.
For more information about the rewards of online trainings for corporate topics, you can check out Lawpilots’ range of gamified online trainings, which range from “Anti-Bribery & Anti-Corruption” to “Equality & Diversity” to “Information Security for Your Employees”. Your workforce can gain new knowledge in an easy-to-understand approachable format, which is designed to improve their focus and the overall learning outcome. See lawpilots’ full programme here.
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