Category: Gamify Onboarding
Program
Pre-workshop engagement | A 14-day experience followed by a virtual team building activity
Background
With the Pandemic still in full force, employees have been required to stay confined in their homes for more than a year now. The monotony of staying at one place and not being able to meet with friends and colleagues had created an understandable strain in most peoples’ lives. While a few in-house virtual activities were planned earlier, it did little to change the mundane situation.
Objective
The objective of this 14-day pre-workshop journey was hence to:
• Break the monotony of the work from home situation
• Boost the team’s engagement
• Build team spirit and cohesiveness
Solution & Execution
The entire engagement was conceived in two parts:
1. The 14-day gamified engagement was designed to be run asynchronously through an app. This built the much needed momentum.
2. For the finale activity, a virtual escape room with multiple story lines running in parallel was proposed.
To ensure everyone got onboard, a small kick-off was executed at the start of the 14-day engagement that helped build the anticipation and excitement for the journey ahead.
Once the engagement got started, the momentum kept snowballing from Day 1. Initially hesitant to share much, the participants looked at each other as a source of inspiration and with each passing day, the votes, comments on submissions and consequent participation only increased.
There was a new challenge launched every alternate day. The challenges were curated such that it engaged the entire team with something for everyone. The challenges were curated around one basic theme – to get to know each other better.
The activity culminated with a mega event of (7 parallel storylines) virtual escape room.
With so much energy already built, the only fitting ending was with a video capturing all the fun and epic moments through this journey of 14 days plus the mega event.
Some snapshots from the app
Impact
With 56 participants, spread over 7 teams with 16 challenges made a whopping 726 completions. The engagement was complemented by a leaderboard which kept the competition on and an activity feed which kept the engagement going.
Some tangible benefits:
• The participants were able to connect with one another at a deeper level
• They were engaged and were looking forward to each day for it held a new, unknown activity
This is what our client stakeholder from the Tech major had to say about the entire engagement:
10/10. 2 weeks of fun ! Loved it. Thank you to the whole team for making this virtual event memorable for us! It certainly rekindled our team spirit and bonding. And well done to all teams! Despite being Zilwa Confis in this covid period where Mcnuggets are scarce, you stayed as Cool as Panthers and completed all the challenges with distinction. Keep flying Sky High like Pegasus. May the Lightning Bringer spirit always keep you engaged ! We also asked the participants how they liked the engagement activities and if they would like to rate it on a scale of 1-10, and this is what some of them had to say: • Awesome, interesting and challenging.. Keep this spirit
• You made us wait for a challenge impatiently everyday
• Awesome and fun experience!
• Concept – 10 – Fantastic activity during confinement for team bonding. Engagement of FocusU – 10 Challenges – 10 App perf – 9.5 – it is marginal compare to how we enjoyed it… totally worth it
• Thank you for bringing out our craziness and raising our spirit with these challenges
• It has been a very amazing week. The challenges helped a lot and the made the difficult times a lot easier. Got into some good habits and discovered new things. Amazing Concept.
• I would say a 10/10! ‘La salle d’evasion” has brought up team engagement at its core and made us motivated each day to do something new. I feel sad that we’ve reached the end but was great fun! Thank you FocusU
• FocusU made me do thing i never thought I’d do, so for this it deserves a 10/10 Very interesting platform
Download this Case Study
Program
A gamified workshop experience to understand unconscious bias and D&I.
Objective
• While D&I has always played a major role in driving innovation and results, this was cemented as one of the key values for this organization, only
recently.
• Hence, the objective of the program was to introduce and make participants aware of the six prevalent unconscious biases that exist in teams.
Audience
• This program was designed for the entire leadership team with 250+ leaders from all business units of the company participating.
Solution & Execution
The entire execution was planned through a combination of engagement on an app and a video conferencing platform.
A gamified solution was designed on the app with an interesting storyline of ‘the chamber of secrets.’ On the day of the intervention, participants were sent to breakout rooms of a virtual meeting platform and challenged to crack clues that would help restore a ruined ancient monument.
To set the context and as a prelude to the workshop, participants were requested to go through some curated content related to D&I. This also
enabled to get the participants to immediately relate to the gamified content and for us to build momentum from the start.
On the day of the workshop, the context was set, the participants were split into teams and then put in breakout rooms. Each room had the same
objective – to solve the clues in the shortest possible time. As participants began solving the clues, they were for themselves, also uncovering the widely prevalent unconscious biases, one at a time.
The activity was interspersed with reflective questions. These nudged participants to think about any behavior that they would like to change/
eliminate/ incorporate in their own lives. The whole engagement was finally culminated with a debrief that brought all the learning together in the
organizational context.
Some snapshots from the app
Impact
While the participants had a fun and engaging experience with each other in the breakout rooms, there were several intangible benefits too.
Participants reflected on how they would change their behavior. Some of the participant inputs that we received are stated here verbatim:
• I will listen to new ideas with an open mind – even if I do not agree with the person
• I will never create stereotypes and prejudices only on looks and other useless traits.
• Check myself before applying any horn or halo effect. Don’t judge a book by its cover
• I will focus on the facts and data and remind myself of biases
• Unconscious biasness is difficult to leave behind but not impossible, will try to not look for similar to me effect
• I will monitor my own behavior, question my own decisions and drive a culture where there is Diversity and everyone feels Inclusive
• Giving talent an opportunity to flourish and recognizing that strength comes when different races, religion, ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, nationalities and social statues work together. This is true inclusion and diversity for me
• Don’t judge the employees basis their past performance. Measure them on objective and realistic goals.
We also asked the participants how they liked the gamified activity and if they would like to rate it on a scale of 1-5, and this is what they had to say:
• Brilliant – more than 5
• Rocking game !!
• Excellent and interesting
• 5- it’s been a great activity
• 5; nice new experience of get connected on virtual platform
This is what our client stakeholders from the company, had to say about the entire engagement:
Client stakeholder, Head of Learning, Talent & OD
Focus U team, Big thanks for facilitating and designing this engaging activity. Our leaders and managers had a fabulous experience with the collaboration and competitiveness.
Client stakeholder, D&I Lead
THANK YOU to the FocusU team ! It isn’t easy to engage a group of 250 + managers. And you did it awesomely well.
Download this Case Study
Problem
Keeping employees’ mental health in mind, the organization’s management team requested an impactful program that not only protects and enhances employees’ overall mental health but also does that in a way that is engaging and time-efficient. As all employees could not commit the same amount of time at once, we created a solution that would require nuggets of time from each employee and encourage all employees to leverage the program at its best
Background
The objective of this program was to:
(a) Encourage mental wellbeing
(b) Introduce participants to various mental well-being practices such as gratitude, compassion, sleep schedules, and more
(c) To encourage the formation of sustainable habits
Solution and execution
Mental health is not only a complex issue to resolve but also very subjective. While employees want to be at work on the whole, some struggle with concentrating, while others have problems with juggling tasks or communicating effectively. To reap the benefits of the program, it was important for employees to have multiple support choices. Therefore, RamG Vallath, a wellness coach and a best-selling author, worked with the FocusU team to co-curate the entire program. Nine traits that are the bed-rock of mental well-being were converted into simple yet exciting challenges that were made available to the participants one day at a time, so as to encourage participants to spend a few minutes each day on their mental wellbeing.
These were:
-
- Gratitude
- Physical wellness
- Compassion
- Self-confidence
- Sense of humor
- Authenticity
- Peace of mind
- Personal Integrity
- A Passion-filled life
These challenges were spread across 25 days so as to ensure participants were not overwhelmed and could easily spend a few minutes every day consistently and consciously. The importance of each trait and all challenges in cultivating the trait were explained through short videos. As an example, here is how the first 3 challenges out of the 25 challenges turned out: Challenge 1: Thank one person who has contributed to your success. Focusing on gratitude, this challenge served as a great reminder to participants that they are not alone and that they have people – be it friends, family, colleagues – to who support them. Challenge 2: List down all the things you are grateful for. To bring light to their current situation, we challenged the participants to count their blessings and relive the joy of those blessings and strengths. Challenge 3: Identify one good thing that happened because of a bad experience. Participants were encouraged to view their bad experiences from a different perspective and realize how things fall into place. Some screenshots from the app:
Impact
To understand the degree of impact, we requested participants to share their experiences with us. With 300+ active participants spread across 35 teams, we received an average feedback rating of 4.2 on a scale of 1 to 5. The application allowed for peer motivation through upvotes and peer comments, and was complemented by a team and a player leaderboard that kept the spirits high. We asked participants to share one element of the challenges they will take with them and continue to do in the future in professional and personal aspects. Here’s what the participants had to say: Thank a person for success Yoga challenge Meditation challenge Peace time Help a colleague Good thing from a bad experience Incedents & feelings Besides individual experiences, we also wanted to understand how relevant each of these 9 traits was. Here’s what participants mentioned:
Participant feedback (stated here verbatim):
- Provokes us to think on things which we never do but is necessary, I like how people are engaged into the activities and talk about it during their free time.
- This concept is really good thought to reduce the stress.
- The concept is paving the way to create a cool and happy person.
- Once again thanks to the team.
- This program covered all subjects in our life.
- This was very helpful to recall our old memories.
- It’s very fun and energetic and always loved to do task Relaxation in between work Visibility of progress and scores.
- The way of organized content to engage.
Download this Case Study
I learnt things the hard way and this blog is an attempt to reflect on the mistakes I made while collecting feedback for online game-based learning courses and gamified content. In my experience this holds true regardless of the type of content – gamified, storified, serious games, elearning, microlearning or nanolearning. If you are an online learning designer or just someone who is learning using online courses, I hope you add to my points and further help me and other learning designers become better.
Continue reading “How To Effectively Collect Feedback For Digital Learning Courses?”
Program
PayPal | Mind Over Matter Challenge: A 21-day wellness journey using microlearning and gamification.
Background
The objective of this 21-day journey was to:
● Encourage participant wellbeing.
● Introduce participants to various wellness challenges ranging from movement, meditation, nutrition and more.
● Take the participants mind off from the current grim situation and re-focus it to enhance overall wellbeing .
With the Pandemic period stretching, employees were required to stay confined in their homes. Balancing work life and personal life, coupled with the monotony of staying at one place and not being able to meet with friends and colleagues had created an understandable strain in their lives.
Solution & Execution
The 21-day wellness journey was designed with the objective of alleviating the boredom and building stronger team cohesiveness.
There was a new challenge launched each day for all 21 days. The challenges were curated such that it positively impacts the physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing of the participants.
The idea of spreading the challenges over 21 days was also to ensure that if someone can consciously stay motivated for 21 days, the likelihood of staying motivated for long after the engagement is over, is quite high.
These were the list of 21 challenges covered:
1. The walking challenge
2. The long weekend sleep challenge
3. The hydration challenge
4. The staycation challenge
5. The skipping challenge
6. The healthy hacks challenge
7. The mental wellness and meditation challenge
8. The plank challenge
9. The lockdown hobbies challenge
10. The readers’ club challenge
11. The yoga challenge
12. ‘PayPal’s Got Talent’ challenge
13. The ‘bloopers’: a time-honored tradition challenge
14. The mid-week de-stressor painting challenge
15. The gratitude challenge
16. The nutrition challenge
17. The ‘go-green’ challenge
18. The OTT platform recommendations challenge
19. The laughter challenge
20. The stretching challenge
21. The finale challenge
Here are a few screen snapshots of the app through which the whole challenge was delivered seamlessly to the participants:
Impact
With 104 active participants, spread over 20 teams, there were a whopping 2013 completions. The learning journey was complemented by a leaderboard which kept the competition on and an activity feed which kept the engagement going.
Some tangible benefits:
● The participants were able to connect with one another at a deeper level
● They were engaged and were looking forward to each day for it unfolded a new activity
● Above all, several participants mentioned that they will incorporate some of the activities from the 21-day challenge in their daily routines
This is what Kavitha Puttaswamy, our client stakeholder from PayPal had to say about the Mind Over Matter Challenge:
Mind over matter Challenge was meticulously organized. It was very engaging and refreshing for all the participants. We received a series of positive feedback as to how these challenges have been impactful and energizing to kick start the day. Each Challenge was well thought out keeping all our current state of mind. There was a mix of fun challenges as well as fitness and a few of them made us all nostalgic. Overall, it was fun to have been introduced to such a Challenge to bring the best out of us all. Keep up the good work as always.
We also asked the participants how they liked the 21-day Mind Over Matter Challenge and if they would like to rate it on a scale of 1-10, and this is what they had to say:
Loved the challenges. Taught me a lot more about myself.
Awesome – obviously 10 from my end. It was very good to enjoy. A few challenges were tough and stretched us as we had to do videos which was not my cup of tea. Still have tried my level best and I thank PayPal and team for such a wonderful challenge.
Definitely made me to reflect back what I did for all these years and helped me to watch out what I am capable of and what I missed.
This was an exceptional, well planned and an inclusive arrangement. Wonderfully planned and pushing people to come out of mundane work routine and live life. I would rate 10/10.
10 – It was amazing, something I looked forward to everyday. Will have to find something new now or maybe redo all of these again.
Would love to rate 10. loved this as it gave an opportunity to go back to my memories and get connected again. Thank you so much.
10, Such fun challenges and so many people participating virtually. Great last 21 days and new perspective to life.
10 – It was a great step to find a new hobby new passion to overcome stress and depression in the current situation.
To know more click here: The 21 day challenge or contact us.
Download this Case Study
Have you ever sat down to write something, say a blog? You open a word document only to end up staring at that blank word document for hours. Do you wonder if there could be an easier way to do this, say a toolkit? What components would you put in in that toolkit? I’d want a questionnaire which prompts what topic you want to choose, who your target audience is, and other similar questions. Now, how about you add some motivators to that toolkit, too? For example, every time you answer a question, you get some points that you can redeem later? Would this make you feel more interested in writing blogs?
Continue reading “How can Gamification be used as a Learning Tool for Your Organisation?”