Gamified Training: Key Benefits & Implementation Guide

Gamified training has gained prevalence in the corporate training environment because of its ability to encourage healthy competition amongst learners.

When participants want to win, they are motivated to seek deep knowledge within the subject area, consider “what if” scenarios when weighing decisions, and anticipate outcomes. This process puts learners in the position of creating their own knowledge rather than being fed information, or absorbing others’ knowledge.

When we create our own knowledge, it sticks with us. It becomes a part of what we know to be true. We then use this knowledge to impact outcomes in a positive way.

The jury is in. Current research shows that gamified training is an effective method for corporate learning and development:

At Celemi, we see the real-world impact of gamified training every day. These benefits occur when games are aligned with the appropriate learning objectives and organizations embrace gamification as a holistic strategy.

Gamified learning is experiential. Along with the increased engagement and motivation that comes with competition, practicing skills within a game provides the repetition necessary to develop skills and improve job performance.

Making mistakes during a game isn’t fun, but it happens in a safe environment. This way, the sting is there (and most can take it in stride) without the severe consequences of making the mistake on the job.

Immediate feedback allows learners to correct their actions quickly to get back on track. It reinforces effective behaviors and makes it easier to identify areas for improvement.

Gamified learning done well includes spaced repetition. As the game becomes more rigorous and learners must repeatedly make decisions in increasingly difficult contexts, the experience accelerates long-term knowledge and skill development.

The social element of gaming also promotes synergistic learning. Strategically placing learners from different roles, geographies, and diverse backgrounds in teams creates an amazing context for sharing knowledge.

Discussing and solving problems with professionals in vastly different roles helps each person see the challenge differently. These 360 views create a peer learning ecosystem that elevates alignment and cross-functional communication.

Being on a team with a professional from a different functional area or geography is networking on steroids. Not only do we get to interact, we get to challenge each other’s thinking, peek under the curtain of a professional area we know little about, and gain peer mentors. Support and knowledge exchanged between different areas of expertise can have a huge effect on a team’s development.

The first thing most facilitators say when opening a course is, “Today, you are free from lecture and lengthy PowerPoint presentations. Instead, you will experience a business simulation with your team.” The collective sigh of relief is universal.

Today’s busy professionals have so many issues swirling in their brains, it can be difficult to get them to focus on learning programs. Breaking training information down into small bites can help keep participants focused, but how long does the information conveyed through traditional training methods actually stay in a person’s memory?

Application is key after any learning program. Applying new skills repeatedly forms a habit, and good habits improve productivity.

Uncovering what operational excellence is and why it’s important is the first step to developing it in an organization. Gamified business simulations help by allowing critical thinking to be practiced at an accelerated pace within the context of a game. Now, muscle memory is created and can be applied back on the job. Once participants see the big picture, they can’t unsee it!

Can you see the big picture? (If you need a hint – shake your head.)

KPMG and Harvard teamed up to find out whether gamified learning really works to improve performance. The outcomes of their study were overwhelmingly positive: “Analysis showed that the training helped increase fees collected by participating offices by more than 25%. The number of clients rose by up to 16%, and opportunities from new clients rose by as much as 22%.” [3]

Gamified training can also serve as a team building exercise. Healthy competition and challenges in the game encourage individuals to exchange ideas, offer assistance, and celebrate each other’s victories, strengthening interpersonal bonds.

For a team to win, they need to work together to tap into everyone’s strengths, building mutual trust and respect. Teams go through the ups and downs of the simulation together, fostering a shared identity and a collective sense of purpose, which transcends beyond the training environment and leads to more collaboration in real-world scenarios.

Most traditional training methods involve very little interaction from the learner beyond simply reading, listening, and perhaps filling out a quiz. Gamified training, on the other hand, is fully interactive. Participants are often up and moving, fully immersed in the experience. Competition and storytelling make business simulations an exciting, memorable, and fun experience – making the learning much more likely to stick.

Traditional instruction does not usually bring about a sense of accomplishment. Usually, the biggest accomplishment is completing the training. With gamified training, goals are set throughout the entire experience. There are memorable ups and downs as participants strive to meet those goals.

Goals help participants understand the why of the training, instead of just the what (the objective information). Accomplishments in the game reflect the successes that can be had in real life once the knowledge from the training is implemented.

Like the name suggests, gamified training involves game elements. These can include a physical or digital game board, badges, leaderboards, points, levels, roleplaying scenarios, and more. These elements make the learning experience more hands-on, immersive, and fun.

Another way to keep learners engaged is to encourage friendly competition between teams. People are much more likely to remember their training if they won, or almost won, or tragically lost to their colleagues. Gamified training usually involves competition for this very reason.

Most athletes will tell you they learn more from games lost than from games won. When there is strong competition, athletes often attribute at least some of the win to luck. At Celemi, we have winners and learners. We expect both to learn, but we suspect teams who came in close 2nd work even more diligently to win in real life. It’s just a hunch. What do you think?

At the beginning of the gamified training course, we often focus on the organization and what issues the participants personally face within their roles. Then at the end of the day, we come back to what participants cited before training.

Next, we ask them to create a game plan for solving the issues. This game plan is based on what they learned within the game and from their colleagues throughout the training.

When appropriate, we have teams present the game plan to the full class. When we can invite senior leaders to listen and learn from the presentations, we do. The reward of being heard is profound!

Learning and development should use change management methods to follow through and support change within the organization. Seeing change implemented based on participants’ plan is the best reward you can offer. Gift cards and chocolate are also nice touches.

Whether the training is digital or face-to-face, it’s important to share the lessons learned to the greater organization.

During digital learning, capturing pearls in the chat should be routine. With face-to-face training, the presentations, or game plans moving forward, should be saved.

Your learning management system (LMS) is a great place to share these aha moments. This is more than marketing – although marketing is a great reason in itself. This is also to spread and reinforce the knowledge throughout the company.
Ask your organizers of town halls and large meetings to use the aha moments in their content. Speak to department heads about what might be useful for their meetings and projects. The more you can elevate learning and development’s role in overall organization success, the higher your performance will soar.

Capabilities are integral to the intangible value of any corporation. You’ve just improved your organization’s market value! This is what it’s all about.

Gamified training involves debriefing before, after, or during the simulation to tie the learning back to your specific company. Group feedback and discussion help to emphasize the parallels between the game and real-life scenarios, and to come up with new and creative ideas inspired by the experience.

This type of feedback loop supports the learner in changing behaviors to improve performance. The team aspect inspires a 360 view of not only their role and department, but also their teammates’ roles and departments. We now have potential for improved performance and improved alignment where silos may have existed.

NeuroLeadership Institute [4] has used neurological research to create a structure for fast and long-lasting learning, called the AGES model. AGES stands for Attention, Generation, Emotion, and Spacing. All of these steps are found in most gamified training programs.

Learning happens when the hippocampus is activated in the brain. For this to happen, it is important to be focused on one topic, with no distractions. Gamified training fully immerses and engages the learner to make sure this happens.

Actively engaging with learning material, rather than passively listening to a lecture or watching a video, has been shown to generate important connections in the brain. These connections make sure knowledge sticks in the learner’s memory. By putting participants in an active role in their learning, gamified training is guaranteed to be memorable.

Emotions such as joy and excitement have also been found to strengthen learning by activating the amygdala, a brain region that appears to alert the hippocampus that the material is important and worth remembering. Games invoke emotions through elements like competition, badges, and leaderboards. Fun and exciting learning is not only fun and exciting – it’s also more effective.

Spacing and repetition are also crucial in the learning process. Instead of cramming, it is best to space out information at a steady pace and go back to concepts later in different contexts. Gamified training does this by spacing out information throughout the game. Different “levels” bring back important information in new and engaging contexts.

Interested in implementing gamified training in your organization? Here are some steps you can take to get started:

What context are you looking to use gamification for? Gamified training solutions are available in a wide variety of topics that are well-suited for many contexts. Here are some examples of some common forms of training that benefit from gamification:

Gamified training does not always have to completely replace other training methods. Incorporating existing training into a gamified solution can be complimentary to both kinds of learning. Traditional training methods like quizzes and PowerPoints can serve as great debriefs before, after, or in between rounds of gamified training.

What do you want this training to accomplish? It is helpful to clearly define what the training is meant to achieve, such as increasing knowledge retention, improving performance, or enhancing employee satisfaction. Knowing what your goals are helps to strengthen and measure the success of the training.

Another important step is understanding the audience. Who will be going through the training? What are their learning styles and preferences? What prior knowledge do they have? Knowing the audience helps you tailor the training to their needs.

Once you have your goals and audience defined, it’s time to choose between virtual and in-person training.

Virtual training is more flexible and scalable than in-person. For a large and/or remote team, virtual training might be the best solution.

In-person training might be the better choice if team building is one of your goals, if your team works in the office rather than remotely, or if the participants have a strong preference for face-to-face interaction.

L&D (Learning and Development) and HR professionals may encounter certain challenges when implementing gamified training. Some examples are:

Choosing a professionally facilitated business simulation can help with these challenges. Ready-made business simulations are often more budget-friendly than creating something from scratch.

This can also save time and money that would otherwise be spent training the trainer. Professional facilitators are well-versed in business simulations. Their expertise will ensure a smooth roll-out and an enjoyable and educational experience.

In a virtual environment especially, a facilitator will be aware of potential technical difficulties that may arise and have solutions at hand to keep things running smoothly.

Business simulations are especially effective because they:

CELEMI Sustainability™ is a simulation that mimics a real-world sustainability transformation for a fictional company.

Measuring the impact of gamified training is an important aspect of your overall commitment to return on investment. The first step is aligning learning goals by administering pre and post tests to assess the knowledge and skills gained by participants.

Your provider can easily support you with these assessments. They should at the very least weigh comprehension and application. You can include engagement elements in the assessments because there is a correlation between engagement and retention.

Beyond this, your team will want to track behavior changes post-training. This could involve assessing productivity, efficiency, or specific skill application in real-world situations.

Participant feedback is essential. It is easy to gather with evaluations or can be included in the post assessment. Collaborating with finance can make a big impact on your measurement of training impact. Noting trends in operational efficiency or sales numbers, or a combination of communication between sales and operations is a great place to start.

If it’s possible to include a control group, your data just became good research! What are the learners doing differently than the control group in three months, six months?

If you have access to good learning analytics tools, you can automate much of this to gain efficiency in time and budget. It is imperative to establish clear goals and align your measurement techniques accordingly.

If you can combine all of the steps above, you will have a comprehensive view of the impact of gamified training on learning, engagement, and overall performance. At Celemi, we build much of this into our sessions. We partner with you for great outcomes.

NTT Data created a training program that enabled leaders to learn more about new management subject areas, and about a role they aspire to occupy within the company, from gamified experience. The program specifically aims to develop skills in negotiation, communication, time management, change management, and problem solving.

So far, 70 leaders have completed the Ignite Leadership Program, and the results are already impressive. Fifty employees took on team leadership roles, a 50% increase from previous training methods. These new leaders proposed ideas that generated $1 million in revenue, and saved costs for current clients. Graduates of the Ignite Leadership program have generated 220 new ideas in customer organizations, leading to a 40% increase in employee satisfaction, and a 30% decrease in attrition.

Deloitte’s online training platform, Deloitte Leadership Academy, includes gamified elements like missions, badges, and leaderboards and traditional training methods like video lectures, courses, tests, and quizzes. The first step in the Academy is for each learner to customize the training to their own learning priorities, ensuring higher engagement.

Badges are awarded to learners throughout the courses. Most of them are given out for straightforward reasons, but some are secret and unexpected. For example, if all members of a department watch the same video in the same week, they are awarded a badge. The company has found these surprise rewards to be great motivators.

Leaderboards are also a strong motivator. Deloitte’s leaderboards are reset every seven days, to give all players a good chance at making the leaderboard, rather than being scared off by consistent top scores that are never beat.

Sally Beauty found that, while most of their customers dyed their own hair, most of them were purchasing their hair dye at other stores. Store associates rarely discussed hair dye with customers and were not confident in their product knowledge.

To solve this problem, Sally Beauty partnered with an eLearning company to create custom, highly gamified online modules to train their sales associates.

These modules involved scenario-based games that allowed associates to practice real-life situations in a safe environment. Knowledge checks provided instant feedback to show learners the impact their choices made.

The training was immediately very successful. Associates had a much easier time selling hair color products to customers after the training. In fact, one product line sold out within 48 hours of the new curriculum being launched.

CELEMI Apples & Oranges™ is available both as board-based and virtual simulations.

A global software company implemented CELEMI Apples & Oranges™, an experiential, gamified business finance simulation into their Sales Kickoff meeting. In their words:

“We wanted to ensure that the investment of money and time was going to provide us with a return that was relevant to our team’s objectives. [Celemi] aligned with various subject matter experts to help align the various points of their program with the outcomes and takeaways we wanted our teams to leave with, and this effort paid off. I’m very pleased we undertook this initiative and I’m confident our teams will continue to benefit from it.”
– Ken Hohenstein, Chief Revenue Officer

“I was pleasantly surprised at the immediate effectiveness that the Apples & Oranges exercise had on our teams. Our group was made up of varying levels of expertise in accounting, so we weren’t sure how applicable this would be across the team, but we quickly found that everyone benefited from this exercise. The outcome was increased empathy for what our prospects are tasked with in their daily lives. I highly recommend this program to anyone looking to level set their team’s appreciation for accounting basics and the importance of making decisions to drive outcomes.”
– Ed DeLise, SVP Revenue Ops

At Celemi, we’re all about Serious Fun! All of our business simulations are social, facilitated, and experiential, bringing all of the benefits of gamified training to your organization.

Participating in a Celemi business simulation stands out compared to developing your own gamified training program. Using Celemi’s solutions saves your team time and money. Our off-the-shelf solutions can be ready in as little as two weeks. They are available in both virtual and physical formats and cover various topics, from business finance to talent management to sustainability.

Our solutions can be tailored to your specific needs or made fully custom. Whichever business simulation you choose, you’ll be in good hands with our years of experience and research that offer a tested and proven approach to enhancing learning outcomes.

[1] Educational Psychology Review. Vol 32(1) March 2020, 77-112

[2] The International Journal of Management Education 21 (2023) 100892

[3] Harvard Business Review: *(Does Gamified Training Get Results?)

[4] NeuroLeadership Institute

We have an array of business simulations and solutions for you to choose from. Look at these descriptions and see if one strikes a chord!