July 17th, 2013

The following is an excerpt from the Business Review Weekly on how using games in Business is proven to be very effective. For the full article please follow the link below.

http://www.brw.com.au/p/tech-gadgets/how_gamification_is_changing_business_N2C7AEx3buv7gxXeSlE8gJ


"...StrategicGamesLab chief executive Marigo Raftopoulos describes ..... how the positive rewards of good game design can drive behaviour-change more effectively than a compliance-based approach.

It is a lesson more companies are taking to heart as gamification – the concept of turning any process into a game – catches on in the enterprise. A growing number of companies are using games to engage and guide staff and customers.

She points out that playing games is not just about having fun. She says interactive play causes an “amazing cocktail” of chemicals such as dopamine, serotonin, testosterone to flood the brain and body, with a huge effect on engagement.
....
“The areas of the brain that are being stimulated are learning, processing emotion, sensory alertness, spatial navigation and long-term memory,” Raftopoulos says. “What is actually happening through game play is, apart from having fun . . . that it does stuff to your brain and your system that helps you learn, and helps you engage.”

Businesses are facing challenging conditions, yet only a small proportion of staff are engaged with their work. Raftopoulos cites research by Towers Perrin, involving hundreds of thousands of employees worldwide, suggesting that in an average organisation, only 20 per cent of staff are actively engaged on the job. A further 40 per cent are engaged but not committed, while 40 per cent are actively disengaged.

The same study found that workplaces that had higher than average levels of engagement far exceeded the financial performance of workplaces that had average engagement levels..."