Work Sucks. How do you make it better?

Work Sucks.
What makes work suck?
It’s boring and unfun.
Which is the widespread cause of turnover, lack of morale, and general uneasiness throughout the work place.

Next question.

How do you make it suck less?

Well it turns out, a great management technique to use is Gamifying.

Gamifying, the art of turning everyday work into a game that people enjoy to play.

For Example:

Filling out forms?

Find out who can do it the fastest with the least amount of mistakes and reward them with a massage, time off, or to trade a work project they are working on to someone else.

Need to increase sales?

Combine your sales people in teams to see if they can come together to beat others for recognition and glory.

Need to increase productivity?

Make teams of people race to see who works best together to increase productivity

Want to get your employees motivated to take on Outside Training?

Then give them points to attend classes, seminars, or conferences and have them return to cross-train others for even more points.

If they get enough, pay for a class of their choice from skydiving, cooking, or more.

The key is to have a game that rewards your employees for desired behaviors such as productivity, sales, or more.
Next Step:

The How-To Guide to Gamifying your Company or Team.
1. Outline the average activities that your employees do each day.
a. File paperwork
b. Make Sales
c. Get Customer Comments
d. Think up new ideas.
e. Increase Productivity.

2. Identify the cons of the activity and see why it is unfun.
a. File Paperwork
i. Mundane Busywork
b. Make Sales
i. Constant Rejection without a uplifting team environment
c. Get Customer Comments
i. No Incentives to do so
d. Think up new ideas
i. Management won’t listen and no reason to change what isn’t broken
e. Increase Productivity
i. No incentive to do more with less

3. Create Framework for Game
a. Brainstorm Ideas on how to turn these activities into a game with points to score.
i. Turn filing papers into a point system that if they make enough points by filing faster; they get an all-expenses paid spa day, the afternoon off, or some other reward they can use their points for
1. Individual Game that promotes incentives for individuals to do better work
ii. Turn making sales into a Team Sport by combining people together to compete against each other to see who wins.
1. Team game that incentives people do work better together to beat each other
b. Brainstorm Rules to the game to make it more challenging and fun
i. If you have a busier time of day enlist rules that they can make double the points if they work together to make the work go faster
ii. Set standards that they do certain things like sell an add-on they get combination bonus points

4. Introduce the game slowly by having only a few people do it to get the kinks out
a. Experiment and Test to see the incentives and rules get the desired results
b. Sometime competition can breed bad feelings and drama so you may have to decide the best approach on the personality of your company and culture.
c. Figure out best ways to track points and numbers

5. Take what you learn, rehash it, and prepare it for mass consumption
a. Here you have a meeting and introduce it to the team
b. You will have to explain it thoroughly and ensure that your employees don’t just see it as a hair brained scheme that will go away tomorrow.

6. And Finally…

MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!!

And there you have it. The best way to boost your company in one of the simplest ways.
Turn it into a game.

And don’t forget that gamifying works with consumers as well as with employees.