Minds at Work #3 - Motivation Behind Gamification: How It Works

Minds at Work Podcast

Host: Olivia MaitreGuest: James Daniels

For our third episode of Minds at Work, we welcomed James Daniels, managing director at Haneo Talent. In this episode, James shares his expertise with gamification and why he believes it is absolutely crucial to use it nowadays – be it in recruiting or in other industries, gamification is the new form of engagement.

Listen to James discuss:

1. The difference between gamified psychometric assessments and personality assessments (1.40)

James explained how the insights differ from one another. In a game-based assessment, you essentially focus on a challenge – and we measure the person’s behavior or natural preferences behind. It’s distinctive from asking questions which is a “self-reported” assessment.

“Over the course of 25-40 minutes game, we collect up to 5000 data points.”

2.Does the brain react differently depending on the assessment? (3.11)

“When you’re playing a game, you’re not being assessed. You’re having fun, and it’s challenging. You’re immersed in a task and that task has different effects.”

James explains that the point of games is to spot natural behaviors and unconscious decisions – you’re not being assessed: you’re playing a game. It’s difficult to guess what’s being measured. 3.What are the benefits of gamified psychometrics? (4.01)

Games can’t be cheated. Contrarily to assessments, in a recruitment scenario, who can be cheated – as you typically want to reply what the employer wants to hear. All famous assessments let you practice and “fake it”.

“You don’t know what is being assessed and even if you do, the finesse of what we measure counts in milliseconds.”

You can’t consciously change your unconscious decisions! Games are a true reflection of one’s personality and they are enjoyable at the same time.

4. Students: applying for university (5.40)

Students are used to seeing the dull, long processes to apply to universities – suddenly they face a game that assesses them, and their experience is completely changed and enhanced.

“Candidate experience is a major selling point”

5.Companies also use gamification as a marketing tool (6.10)

Essentially because of candidate experience!

Gamification is hugely advantageous for companies – it helps to automate processes a lot more efficiently and saves a huge amount of time.

6.Where is gamification being used? (6.41)

“In general, any company that wants to create engagement.”

James gives us an example of a company who is starting to implement gamification for training purposes. In other words, making training fun instead of using a typical e-learning platform.

Training is a new area of gamification: a big number of companies are implementing serious games to build leadership training or negotiation training.

7. Should every type of business implement gamification? (8.26)

“Today, there are not that many business areas where companies are not trying to engage more with their employees, candidates, and customers.”

Later, James sheds light on the difference between gamification and a game-based assessment.

Gamification: creating engagement by adding some game-like features in non-game contexts Game-based assessment: Game has been created from the bottom-up for a specific matter

Game-based is actually not gamification.

8. How did assessment tools evolve in the last 10 years? (9.35)

James surprised us by saying that assessment tools actually haven’t really evolved. 10 years ago – assessments were on papers. Between 5-10 years ago: assessments came online. But the questions remain the same! Simply put, assessments have the same content, but they are on different platforms.

“Technology hasn’t really been used to improve assessments until a hand full of companies started building game-based assessments.”

Most of the traditional assessments are still exactly the same. They are still as useful, but they haven’t really evolved.

Game-based assessments only started 3-4 years ago.

9. The next step: Virtual Reality (10.32)

Will we see VR in all types of businesses?

James thinks that in the area of assessments and training, we will obviously see VR.

10. Why are we so into challenges? (11.18)

Humans by nature like challenges. We love having the sense of accomplishment – and we love learning new things.

“In a corporate world, people don’t’ realize that they are not happy if they are not learning.”

Learning from mistakes, the challenge is a key part of it.

11. Do you play games yourself? (12.15)

Funnily enough, James affirms that he had never really been into games before. Now, he does, as he tries the assessments himself – to see how candidates would experience them. He barely ever played a game before that!

“People truly engage when they are playing games.”

“Companies are always after an engagement, be it with their clients, candidates and customers – it only makes sense to look at this tool!”

In HK & China particularly, people adore games. In China, there are 54 million users daily on a game: similar to candy crush – simple, challenging game but very engaging.

This was a really eye-opening conversation – and we hope you think so too. Thanks James for taking the time! Stay tuned for the 4th episode