There is no denying that work-from-home (WFH) or hybrid models have resulted in marked benefits for employees and companies. However, for managers and supervisors, remote work can pose a challenge when it comes to ensuring efficient performance and communication with their team.

Gamification is one way these issues could be addressed, especially in this age of rapid digitalization. While it’s certainly not a new concept, a well-designed gamification program can help improve employee performance. Sun Life Asia Service Centre-Philippines (ASCP), a company providing contact center, business processing, IT, and Investment Research services to Sun Life’s global businesses, has launched an initiative for performance management and learning gamification for its over 800-hundred strong operations team in Manila.

Gamification is defined as a process in which game-like elements such as scoring, rewards, and competitions are placed to create a more engaging workplace experience. For Sun Life ASCP, the process to gamify began pre-pandemic with the goal to drive digitalization and improve client satisfaction in their workforce, but it also helped the organization rise to the challenges posed by the pandemic.

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ASCP Ops Gamification

“ASCP Ops Gamification” which was launched during the pandemic, equipped frontline employees with a personalized performance dashboard, where they could see their targets and track their progress in real-time. The platform created opportunities for more frequent and meaningful supervisor-employee interactions through real-time feedback. Sustainable gamification mechanics also gave everyone a chance to be a winner, with elements such as performance leaderboards and avatars, along with AI-driven and personalized learning modules to fit individual strengths and weaknesses that would take the monotony out of the coaching.

Aside from improved performance, the gamification program has also helped reduce the learning curve for new employees, allowing them to hit their performance and learning objectives faster than before. In an early analysis done at ASCP, 86% of users showed a strong correlation between higher performance ratings and with gamification engagement, with over 80% accessing the platform daily. 76% of survey respondents expressed that they appreciated using gamification as a tool for learning, coaching, and performance monitoring. As time passed and employees got more accustomed to using gamification as a way of working, the performance levels improved further.

So how did Sun Life ASCP do it? Here’s a quick rundown of the three top insights from Sun Life ASCP when it came to developing and executing a gamification program for companies:

Performance Management System

It is important for companies to have a well-developed performance management system to make the most out of a gamification program. Organizations should have a clear picture of their business goals and the KPIs they need to measure that will relate to these objectives, along with an idea of what a high-performing employee would look like.

The design of the platform should be easy to access and navigate. Like any digital platform user experience is more important than the number of features available. Best example will be our smart watches tracking fitness activity, where users are able to understand their KPIs intuitively.

Sun Life ASCP suggests limiting the KPIs to three or four main ones so as to not make the experience overwhelming for the user while at the same time, providing performance updates as close to real time as possible. Functions for bite-sized assessments and coaching sessions were included in Sun Life ASCP’s platform to help employees improve as they go.

Feedback

To continue improving performance management and employee engagement, Sun Life ASCP created a core team of users which provided weekly and monthly feedback on which features worked for them, which didn’t and what updates they would like to see.

Among some of the functions Sun Life ASCP added to the platform were peer-to-peer kudos to increase motivation; micro-learning modules were also added for performance improvement. User guides were created to help teach employees about these new features, with points awarded for completing courses. The design team also experimented with limited-time features and seasonal campaigns, collecting data and user feedback.

According to Sun Life ASCP, what made “ASCP Ops Gamification” effective was that it not only allowed employees to compete with other teams and their peers but more importantly, with themselves.