An increasing number of HR departments are adopting gamification to enhance engagement in the hiring and recruiting process. A major HR trend for 2018 is improving the job candidate process from selection to applications, interviewing and hiring.
Gamification presents an evolution in HR management practices. In addition, improving the recruiting process helps companies remain competitive in attracting and retaining top talent.
Increase Engagement
According to this Gallup poll, only 31 percent of employees are engaged at work while 51 percent are dis-engaged and 17.5 percent are actively disengaged. It goes without saying that companies want engaged and productive employees.
As a result, organizations must come up with a new approach for employee motivation. And, this approach can certainly be utilized within the hiring process. If you’ve ever visited sites such as Glassdoor.com, you can easily find many negative reviews for hiring processes.
HR departments may have waited three months to contact a job candidate after submitting their application or just left a candidate in the dark when they are not chosen for the position. These types of bad practices must change because candidates do and will post negative reviews. Furthermore, negative hiring reviews can hurt a company’s reputation–especially if they want to hire the best candidates for their open positions.
Yet, incorporating game mechanics into the recruiting process instills super-engagement and a sense of purpose. Moreover, gamification can be used to influence company culture and performance management. Gamification can even be used to test skill sets with the objective of preventing a bad hire.
According to this article, a second-level manager who earns $62k annually and gets terminated after two and a half years will cost a company $840,000 in hiring, total compensation, work disruption, severance, missed opportunities and maintenance costs. So, gamification can be incorporated into the recruiting process to ensure the right job candidate is hired.
How is Gamification Unique?
Gamification combines traditional and social games with behavior-motivating techniques. There are two facets of gamification: structural and serious games.
Structural relates to activities that offer badges, points, levels and leaderboards as progression levels. Serious games can be simulations such as conveying a day in the life at your office.
Moreover, gamification utilizes game mechanics in normally non-game environments such as the recruiting, hiring, training and development process. Adding gamification to the hiring process offers a unique and refreshing options for a normally monotonous and anxiety-inducing process.
Gamification in Each Step of the Hiring Process
Every aspect of the hiring process can include gamification, all the way up to on-boarding and more. To illustrate, Marriott International Inc. created a hotel-themed online game to help new employees acclimate to the company culture.
Some jobs require a long application process and even testing. No one likes to spend hours filling out pages of applications and taking rigorous tests.
Yet, HR departments can turn this into a gamified process by providing rewards for completing each step of the application process. At the same time, gamification can be used to offer company perks to top recruiters. Gamification can help job candidates feel engaged throughout the application and interview process.
Filter Qualifications
Attracting qualified workers is a challenge all recruiters face. This is especially true for startups who don’t have the same resources as enterprise companies. Then, it is important to hire someone who can mesh well with the company culture and current employees.
PwC Hungary is a study of success in recruitment gamification. They created a game called Multipoly that gives their job candidates the opportunity to test their ability to work there by having them solve real-world problems in a game-like setting. The job candidates are presented with jobs based on PwC competencies. Items that are tested include:
- Relationship skills
- Digital skills
- Business skills
Essentially, job candidates get to experience a simulation of working for the company, through a game. Imagine how much more fun this process is over sending candidates to your website to review on their own time. Plus, PwC now has quantifiable results regarding the most successful candidates.
In Conclusion
Even after hiring is completed, gamification can be used to improve employee engagement, retain valuable employees and to make ongoing training more enjoyable. As a result, you end up with a more interactive and rewarding process, which serves as a win-win for all parties involved.
