How to Establish a Solid Gamification Strategy for Your Staffing Company

The rise in popularity of gamification in the workplace has grown steadily in the past couple of years. Gamification made Deloitte’s 2013 list of Top 10 Technology Trends and the Gartner Group forecasted that 70 percent of Global 2000 Companies would use a “gamified” application or system by 2014. Furthermore, businesses spent $100 million on gamification in 2010 and that figure is estimated to reach $2.8 billion by 2016.

If you have decided to implement gamification at your staffing business, you will be joining the 25 percent of companies that the Gartner Group predicts will be redesigning their business processes by 2015. Below are ways on how to best establish and execute your gamification strategy to ensure success:

Determine the purpose of gamification for your business

In business, everything a company does must have a clear-cut purpose so as to avoid wasting time, money, and other resources. Determine what you envision gamification doing for your staffing company. Are you looking to bring in more interest to your staffing services from job seekers?

The popularity of video interviewing technology is credited for helping companies brand their organization as being innovative and willing to embrace new technology. Implementing gamification strategies can also do the same and appeal to the millions of skilled, tech-savvy Millennial candidates.

Hire designers with the right skills and knowledge

If your reason for utilizing gamification at your business is to increase the amount of candidates interested in working with your staffing professionals, it is crucial that you not lose sight of the importance of crafting a positive, easy-to-navigate candidate experience.

Be sure to work with designers with the skills and knowledge that will allow them to create a gamified system that fits your business objectives. Betaout explains that gamification is “all about enhancing user experience.” You will want to hire designers that understand the staffing industry and how a candidate of yours would approach gameplay. If the gamified job application is poorly designed, your candidates will not have an enjoyable experience and you may lose out on potential talent for your clients.

To learn a bit more about a person beyond their resume, you might consider designing a game that has the candidate in the role of a waiter in a restaurant serving food to guests to determine their behavior when potentially dealing with your client’s customers. Or you can create a problem-solving game that will help you gauge how quick on his or her feet a candidate is.

You may also want into look into companies such as Knack, which develops games to help companies determine which candidates would make valuable team members. The people behind Knack are behavioral and data scientists, software and game developers, and game designers and artists.

Test, test and test some more

Gamification is a huge trend that’s taking off within the staffing industry. However, what others are doing may not work for your particular organization. Establishing an effective gamification system requires thoughtful strategy, therefore, you must have the patience to take time to test out different versions of games in order to determine which one will best engage your targeted audience and provide your desired results.

The war for talent continues to rage on, therefore, staffing companies must see to it that they are exploring the many different options for enhancing their talent acquisition strategies. Gamification is a fresh, unique way to nab the attention of top talent who have the right skills and personalities to excel at a client’s organization.

Be sure to check out our whitepaper “The 2015 Staffing Industry Trend Report” for more tips!

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