Everyone and their auntie seems to be jumping on the gamification bandwagon these days. The number of stores offering reward cards for regular buyers has increased - though admittedly this is a ‘light’ form of gamification - and an increasing number of apps are taking advantage of the engagement gamification creates to keep users playing games, buying clothes, sharing photos and checking in. But just because gamification is a popular addition in a variety of domains, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to implement or get right… Don’t add gamification for gamification’s sake If your app, website, Learning Management System or other product, service, shop, or other isn’t suited to gamification, don’t try to cram it in there. A funeral services website will be an absolute laughing stock - not to mention incredibly offensive - if it awards users with points and badges for navigating around, placing orders, or leaving reviews! Do align gamification to objectives It’s highly unlikely that adding gamification to your Learning Management System or other platform willy-nilly will actually achieve what you want it to. To get the results you want, you’ll need to align the gamification to your objectives. So think carefully about what behavioural outcome you want to encourage in your learners or users. If you want them to keep coming back, logging on, loading up the app, shopping in your store, etc, then give them points or badges when they come back or buy something else. By rewarding their return behaviour, they’ll be more likely to come back again and again because they associate your product or service with a happy, accomplished feeling. Don’t use the wrong gamification features A leaderboard of Viagra.com’s top buyers will not go down well - yet a points-based system, which is anonymous and offers real-world rewards (1,000 points gives you a free packet) will work. Similarly, a fitness app which awards badges to you and your friends, but which doesn’t show the top achievers on a leaderboard, won’t be engaging or motivating. Do shake things up (sometimes) If users know exactly how many points they’ll get for each activity, which badges are on offer, and so on, things will soon get stale. Shaking things up by offering sporadic bonus points, new badges, or flash sales - whereby their points buy a lot more for a short time - will keep things fresh and engaging. Users will never know when these things will happen, and the unpredictability can be exciting. Don’t give up If you think your website, LMS, etc is perfect for gamification but you aren’t seeing any positive benefits yet, persevere. Of course the leaderboard will look sparse at first and people won’t be all that motivated to reach the top. But here’s where flash points sales and bonus badges can work to generate initial excitement around the LMS or other platform. Do give up "But you just told me not to give up…!" Sorry, but if you feel you’ve given it your best shot, it may be that gamification just isn’t suited to your organisation, product or service. In this case, we’re afraid that gamification will be more of a hindrance than a help. However, before you strip gamification from your offerings, have another look at your strategy. Could it be the kinds of gamification you’ve implemented aren’t suited to your website, LMS, store, etc? Perhaps you’ve gone about things the wrong way and have just lumped gamification on top of your pre-existing service? To fully take advantage of the engagement and motivation that gamification generates, you need to fully integrate it into whatever you’re offering. Whether you’re trying to gamify a supermarket, an app, an LMS or a business, there are certain things you’ll need to consider to truly create an effective union. Click the button below to find out more about how to align gamification to your business’s strategy!    The post 6 Gamification Dos and Don’ts appeared first on Growth Engineering.

‘Gamification’ is more than just the latest buzz word in the Learning and Development world. It’s an incredible engagement-boosting tool that can be used to achieve spectacular organisational changes and overcome a whole host of challenges. But there’s a catch (isn’t there always!?): not all gamification is created equal. If you don’t take the time to strategically align gamification to your business goals, you’ll become marooned in the hostile land of ‘well, it was a nice idea, anyway…’ Sometimes, in their excitement, newbies are guilty of cramming every possible gamification feature into every possible aspect of their business, training, marketing, and so on. They may not be quite sure what gaming mechanic - badges, points, leaderboards, levels, and so on - is suitable for which area, so they just chuck everything into the mix together. Now, it’s great to show enthusiasm, but you don’t want badges coming out the wazoo! Without a strategy behind gamification, you’ll end up in a swamp of muddled points which ultimately doesn’t do anything to move the business forward or achieve any of the fabulous outcomes you expected from gamification. All this can give gamification a pretty bad reputation. If you went full-out with your gamification plan, expecting the best, but found it really didn’t work - who or what do you blame? Yourself, for adding gaming mechanics where they don’t belong and without a strategy, or the concept of gamification itself for not doing what it is ‘supposed’ to do? Unfortunately, too often if a gamified plan doesn’t work, it’s the gamification itself that gets the brunt of the complaints. But, as the old saying goes, a bad workman blames his tools… Luckily, we know a fair bit about what is involved in implementing gamification in an organisation - and it’s not as simple as throwing badges at employees! Essentially, you’ll want to figure out what your business objectives are, select the kinds of gamification features which will work in each instance, and then strategically bring gamification into the mix. Want to find out more? Download our free white paper below to discover: What exactly gamification is What business objectives gamification can help with How to launch your gamification strategy and more!  The post Is gamification at fault? A bad workman blames his tools… appeared first on Growth Engineering.

When speaking to potential clients, we often hear a variation of the following claim: ‘Our audience is young. They’re tech-savvy. They need gamification. It’s a perfect fit for our audience.’ This never fails to trigger my curiosity: do they realise why gamification works in learning? Are they receptive to the idea that gamification can be an effective motivator for those who are knee-high to a grasshopper and those who have been there, done that and bought all the t-shirts? Picture the brain as a big, soft, lovely, pink sponge. As we move through the world it soaks up a huge amount of information. Unlike a typical sponge, however, it filters the information into various channels by chunking the information into relevant categories. This frees up space and focus for us to learn new things. When faced with a new learning challenge, we turn fresh information (or brain data, if you like), over in our head and try to attach it to one of our existing mental frameworks. It’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Our brain starts with the corners and works its way inwards, transforming newly grasped patterns into comprehensible chunks of knowledge. Whilst I’m sure that you, dear reader, already have mighty mental capacity, I still thought you might be interested to hear the three quickest ways by which your brain absorbs new information. Through experience. Like when you learn that standing on a nail hurts, because you just stood on a nail. Through stories. Jurassic Park has taught us that it’s probably not a good idea to create a wildlife park full of living, breathing dinosaurs. Through games. A good game is like an interactive story. It’s a low-stakes way of learning by experience and it can be super effective. In the world of games, you can make mistakes, test boundaries and try out new strategies. It’s like a play-pen for your soft, spongey brain. They are a break from a reality, but they still contain patterns of information that link to the real world. They may be an abstraction, but this, if anything, just makes it easy for our brains to absorb the information that they contain. Games are puzzles for our brains to solve. As with every other aspect of our lives, we manage to get ahead once we have learned the pattern of the game and have comprehended the concepts within it so thoroughly that they become second nature. Progress in the game is usually the result of us chunking away information (for instance: that putting hotels on all of your properties in Monopoly is a good way to get ahead) and accessing this data when needed. You’re aided, of course, by the fact that games provide you with ample opportunities to practise and run different permutations. Fun is all about feeling good, which is, in turn, linked to the release of endorphins into our system. We get this mad rush whenever we master a new task. This is our body rewarding us for learning something new. Fun arises out of the mastery involved in solving a new puzzle. Boredom is the opposite. It’s fun’s evil twin. When we’re bored, our brain is desperately seeking new information to feed the sponge. Like a plant, our brains need regular watering. This partly explains why games are such a great way of learning. But that’s not to say that all games are effective learning tools. For example, if a game is too easy we get bored very quickly. You don’t see too many Chess Grandmasters challenging random adolescents on the street to a break-out game. Likewise, if a game is too deep or challenging, we tend to switch off (which is a more genial way of saying, ‘give up’). It all boils down to this: if you are looking to stimulate learning, a clear sign of failure is that your target audience has found the experience boring. Well pitched games are a great way of learning, regardless of the age of your audience. If you can create a fun learning experience, you will have, in turn, created an effective learning experience. It’s a bit like magic. Now you just need to get your hands on an ‘I Heart Gamification’ t-shirt and you’re good to go. Unfortunately, we’re all out of t-shirts. Luckily, you are able to download our wildly popular white paper, ‘The Business Case for Gamification’, which contains a treasure trove of stats, facts and case studies about one of our favourite topics!  The post Why YOUR Brain Can’t Get Enough of Gamification: appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Nobody likes to be different or unique. We all just want to be the exact same as our peers, working as one unit to bring food back to the colony and to look after the pupa. Oh, sorry - that’s ants, isn’t it? People aren’t entirely dissimilar to ants. We like to work as a team towards the same goal but, unlike ants, we value our individuality. In this consumerist age, it’s never been easier for us to pursue our individuality and to sculpt the world to our own preferences. We’re now so used to getting our own way that we expect custom-tailored service wherever we go. Your learners are also people and, whether you like it or not, they have the same expectations. If you want to help your learners get the most out of your learning content, you need to make it about them. Be Flexible With so many custom options available in the world and only a limited time to avail of them, it doesn’t take long for your schedule to fill up. Your learners have the same problem and you can’t expect them to be in the mood for training all of the time. A fully online learning solution lets you hand that responsibility over to the learners themselves. This means that they aren’t tied down to a specific time and place - they can access their learning material from the office or, if they prefer, they can take their training on a Sunday morning in their undies with a bowl of corn flakes. Custom Journeys With some instructional design knowhow (and the right authoring tool), you can craft a piece of learning content that really speaks to the learner. To do this effectively, you need to create a journey that the learner can identify with and tell a story that they can relate to. Your aim, as a learning professional is to highlight the learning objective and deliver it to the learner, but your strategy should be more learner-centric. The key with these journeys is to take every opportunity to put the learner at the centre of the action. With a game-based eLearning template, your options increase even further. Here you can build so much more into the content than mere facts, figures and learning objectives. With the Genie Content Authoring Tool, for example, you have the freedom to create badges that celebrate your learners’ successes in a meaningful way. The Discovery Method But you want to do more than just build eLearning that your learners can identify with. At Growth Engineering, we’ve developed a learning methodology that can suck them into the eLearning like Jeff Bridges in Tron! We call it the Discovery Method and it’s a way of tailoring the journey for the learner. Instead of asking the learners to complete a multiple choice question, or to read a hypothetical scenario, the Discovery Method asks them to examine their past and to think of how they dealt with similar situations. This taps in to a whole repository of learning material - the learner’s own experience - and it helps to create a bridge between that and the learning objective. This functionality can also be used to recall their responses in the learning itself. Here, you can do fun things like addressing the learner by name or referring to their job title - if the learner can type it, you can substitute it within the content. With the challenge of creating effective eLearning, your success depends on how well you engage your learners. If you give them an experience they can relate to, there’s a much better chance that the learning will stick. The next time you’re planning an eLearning project, don’t just give the learners an eLearning unit - give them their own personal learning journey! If you want to wield the power of the Discovery Method, and captivate your learners with exciting game-based eLearning units, why not give Genie a spin? Start your free demo today by clicking the lamp!  The post Make It Personal And Engage Your Learners appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Learning technology is surging forward at an impressive rate, offering more and more opportunities to roll out truly effective training programs. One such innovation is the eLearning game template - a simple way to create engaging learning journeys. Could these be the future of online learning? Engagement is the most important element when it comes to delivering a successful learning campaign. If the learners aren’t engaged with the training, it will have minimal effect, if any at all. Employee engagement has always been a big concern for organisations. Although engagement levels have been gradually improving, recent studies have shown that the majority of employees are disengaged. The Rise of the Millennials Out of the switched-off masses, the largest demographic is made of millennials. This is a significant issue already, but it’s projected that these millennials will make up 75% of the entire workforce by 2025. If they can’t be engaged in time, we’re all surely doomed to a zombie learner apocalypse! By some lucky coincidence, this very same demographic accounts for the largest share of the gaming industry. 30% of gamers are aged between 18-35 and they’ve grown up speaking the language of games. If L&D professionals want to engage the leaders of the future, they need to adopt the same vocabulary. A step towards gamification Creating a game-based learning solution will help you communicate with game-savvy learners, but on its own, that’s hardly a good enough reason to invest in it. The fact of the matter is that gamification is a proven method of engaging people and getting the results you need. Our own clients have reported massive overnight surges in engagement simply by applying gamification to their learning platforms. Game-based eLearning templates can be a good foot-in-the-door for those looking to implement gamification in their training. Aside from creating a learning unit that reflects the gaming culture the learners are used to, you are also encouraging behaviours that can ultimately change your organisational culture. By placing the learning in the framework of a game, the material feels more like a challenge they need to overcome, rather than a necessary evil. The number one element that gamers look for is an interesting story or premise. If you go a step further and incorporate some good storytelling, you can increase the engagement by getting the learner emotionally involved in the process. If you’re looking for an exciting and flexible alternative to humdrum, click-through slideshows, Genie is a game-based content authoring tool that’s perfect for L&D departments of any size. Give it a spin for yourself on unleashthegenie.com - just give the lamp a rub!  The post Are game templates the future of eLearning? appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Can you hear that? Sounds like a drumroll… That must mean only one thing! That’s right, we’ve filled up another spot in our ever-growing awards cabinet! This time we’ve made an appearance in Training Industry’s Top Learning Portals Companies Watch List. That’s quite the mouthful, but it basically means that they consider us to be one of the best companies in the world to turn to when you need a learning portal. Of course, this is down to all the blood, sweat and tears we’ve poured into our gamified, social Academy Learning Management System. Our development team constantly works its socks off to make sure it’s the most engaging learning platform you’ll find in this end of the Milky Way! Training Industry spotlights the latest news, articles, case studies and best practices within the training industry. They’re constantly monitoring the training marketplace for the best providers and services to highlight in their various Watch Lists. Here’s what the Learning Portal judges were looking for: New and innovative service Unique approach to delivering learning solutions Commitment to improving learning through technology Quality of clients Our Managing Director Juliette Denny has been bouncing around the office all day. We managed to talk her down from the ceiling briefly so that she could share a few words: "We couldn’t be happier to make this list! It’s simply awesome that our company is making such a massive impact on the world stage. We’re living up to our name and growing quickly as a company at the moment, so we’re looking forward to countless bigger and better things to come." If you’d like to find out what the Training Industry judges saw in our Academy LMS, why not take a free tour for yourself?  The post Big Training Industry Watch List announcement! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

We’re feeling extra generous today, so we’ve got a special treat for you. We’re giving you not just one, but TWO brand new case studies! You can’t say we’re not people pleasers! These two case studies will give you valuable insight into how our clients are putting our gamified, social Academy LMS to great use. You’ll also get a sneak peek at some of the amazing ROI stats they’re getting out of their programmes. Holcim Australia Sales Academy We might be based in the UK, but there are few places around the globe that we can’t reach! Despite being based on opposite ends of the planet, Holcim got in touch with us to help them with their training needs. They knew they could trust us because of the bumper work we had already done with their UK sister company, Aggregate Industries (you can read their case study here). Holcim’s case study is an excellent example of how our platform can be used to organise a truly blended learning solution. You can read about the robust five-stage learning programme each of their learners goes through. It’s also a great case study of the value of our sales training content, all accredited by the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management. Find out how motivated their learners have become by the prospect of earning real, internationally recognised qualifications! Check out the Holcim Australia Sales Academy case study here! GAME Learning Zone GAME’s case study is a fantastic example of how to engage your learners. Seriously, these learners are so engaged they’re willingly visiting the platform on their days off! Read all about the staggering number of learner logins and the wealth of content that each user is completing on the platform. We’ve even captured a few of the hundreds of comments they’ve been leaving all over their platform to show you exactly which Academy features they’re loving the most! Check out the GAME Learning Zone case study here! Bet you’re eager to find out how our Academy LMS could work for you! Why not sign up for a free tour today?  The post Two brand new case studies: Holcim Australia and GAME Retail! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

We’re gonna need a bigger awards cabinet… Just two days after announcing that we’ve been listed on Training Industry’s Top Learning Portal Companies Watch List, we’re now absolutely over the moon about being shortlisted in THREE categories at this year’s Training Journal Awards! We’re reaching dangerous levels of excitement here in the office, as our diaries are filling up quickly with swanky awards shindigs. It’s always nice to hear that other people think our gamified, social Academy LMS is as great as we know it is. But we can’t take all the credit, because it’s only through the fantastic partnerships we build with our clients that we create really magical learning programmes. Our Managing Director Juliette Denny hasn’t stopped dancing since she heard the news. We caught her while she was in the middle of the waltz to grab a few words: "This just proves that we’re working with some of the biggest rock stars around! It’s awesome to be shortlisted alongside some of the most recognisable companies in the world. We’re going for gold in the next stage of the competition, and we’ll definitely be giving everything we’ve got to win!" So what have we been shortlisted for this time? TD Academy TD Academy was a joint effort, built by Growth Engineering, Hewlett-Packard and Azlan, the Enterprise Division of Tech Data Corporation. It’s been used to train Azlan’s 4,000 sales partners, spread all across Europe. These guys are such superstars that they’ve been shortlisted in TWO categories at the Training Journal Awards - ‘Best Sales Programme’ and ‘Best Use of Technology in Learning’. And they’re in good company, as they’re shortlisted alongside some big names, including Toshiba and British Telecom. The main goal of Azlan’s programme was to outgrow the market and all competition. Sounds easy enough, right? Well despite setting such an ambitious target, since launching in 2013, the partners who are making the most use of TD Academy are now outperforming the rest of the market by a whopping 70% year-on-year growth. Read more about TD Academy and its incredible ROI figures in this case study. Steinhoff Learning Store Steinhoff Learning Store has been built by Growth Engineering and Steinhoff UK Retail, and it’s shortlisted in the ‘Best Training Partnership’ category. It’s used to train the 2,300 salespeople across Steinhoff’s UK businesses - Bensons for Beds, Harvey’s and Cargo. We’ve worked very closely with Steinhoff to fully brand and customise their learning platform so that it’s just right. But what sorts of results has it achieved? Well since launching, Steinhoff’s three UK businesses have increased sales revenue, reduced staff turnover, and cut down the time it takes to train new starters by a third. No-one can grumble at that! Read more about Steinhoff Learning Store and its awesome ROI figures in this case study. What next? We’ve got to fight our case in front of judges over the next couple of months, and then on November 25 we’ll be off to The Brewery in London for a glitzy gala dinner to find out who’s won! You can sure we’ll be in it to win it! If you’d like to see how our Academy LMS could deliver results for you, why not sign up for a free tour today?  The post We’ve been shortlisted for THREE Training Journal Awards! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

The internet has changed almost every facet of our lives. There isn’t a whole heap of activities that remain untouched - Monopoly can be played online; shopping can be done solely online; jobs are found online; and even dating happens online these days! It is not surprising, then, that education has also been impacted on by the internet. Gone are the days when employees had to travel hundreds of miles to a training centre in order to learn the skills their jobs require. Now, they can simply open up their laptops, log on to their Learning Management System and take training - all from the comfort of their office, home, or public transportation. It seems too good to be true - and for some, it will be. eLearning might not necessarily be suited to every employee, every organisation or every situation. Here are the pros and cons of online learning to help you see if eLearning is right for you: Pro: easily accessible Employees can log on to their LMS anytime, anywhere, anyhow. All they need is an internet connection and the means by which to take eLearning (a desktop computer, laptop, tablet or even a mobile phone). Con: requires technical skills Now, learners don’t have to know how to code, but they will need to understand the very basics of using computers and the internet, and basic trouble shooting. For instance, how to take a screenshot when submitting a bug report, or how to use a mouse/trackpad to drag and drop quiz answers within a time limit. Some more sophisticated software might require a steeper learning curve over and above what employees might feel comfortable with, but LMS creators like yours truly realise not everyone will have experienced using these kinds of systems before - that’s why we offer full Admin training and advice! Pro: can be used to supplement classroom training Going for an online learning option doesn’t mean you’re never allowed to see your learners in person! A ‘blended’ learning approach can be very useful as it can ensure a deeper level of understanding is achieved. Employees can take training online under their own steam, then come to a training workshop event fully armed with the knowledge they will then be discussing. This can really help to cement the training more deeply. Con: face-to-face training will always be costly You might be thinking about moving your training online because of the costs involved in classroom-based training. There’s no denying that it’s expensive to put employees through face-to-face training, and we’re not just talking about paying a tutor and booking a venue. You’ve also got to think about the costs involved in taking employees away from their desks for a day or two, travel expenses, food and drink costs, and any other costs that might crop up. Unfortunately, blended learning is associated with similar costs. After saving money using online learning, you’ll still have to spend the cash to bring your employees together. However, there’s no denying that blended learning is a cheaper, more effective option than solely classroom-based training - the amount of time spent away from the desk is reduced, fewer workshops are required, and information is reinforced in learners’ minds more thoroughly. Pro: no waiting around Employees who wish to take training won’t have to wait around for the next training event or sign up months in advance. Instead they can simply express their desire to undertake the eLearning, log on to their LMS, access the content and go for it. This results in a workforce which is much more skilled and ready to take on challenges. It also means that learners can progress through training at the own speed - so, for instance, a part-time worker can still take advantage of the training, but take their time over it. Compare this to a part-time worker having to attend the same training course as a full-time worker and you can see the benefits. Con: dragging it out Although employees being able to take training as and when needed is a huge benefit, it’s not without its problems. For instance, some employees might not be as dedicated to their eLearning as others - meaning that while most employees have completed all the required work and passed their course, some are lagging behind. It can then be difficult to motivate them to carry on and pick up the pace. This last point highlights the importance of securing learner buy-in. Without learners’ dedication and engagement, you can’t be certain they will complete their training in the timeframe you hoped for. There are ways to overcome this issue, though - we make sure learners are engaged with their training through the use of gamification (badges, points, levels, leaderboards) to make online learning more fun. Check out how we do this below!  The post The Pros and Cons of Online Learning (is it right for you?) appeared first on Growth Engineering.

A lot of people think that work and fun are two separate things, but at Growth Engineering, we know different. Fun makes people happy, happiness creates engagement and engagement is the fuel that boosts productivity and lets your business grow. In essence, we don’t think that fun and work are distinct from each other - we KNOW that a little bit of fun can make a huge difference to your work. Don’t just take our word for it - we’ve done the research and we’ve put this video together, just for you, to show you why happiness at work is so important. As we’ve said, we’re advocates of enjoyment in the workplace - you could say that we believe it’s a FUNdamental part of our values (sorry). If you’re wondering how to engage your team, your learning and development is the best place to start. If you have a learning management system, it’s likely to be one of the few platforms that you have to reach out to all of your employees. If that’s the case, it’s hugely important that this platform embraces your company’s values in every way but this will count for nothing if you can’t engage your learners. Check out this article to find out more about the importance of engagement in your online learning. You don’t need a bunch of statistics to know that everything just feels easier when you’re happy. When you’re up against the clock with deadlines, the last thing you need is an attack of glumness. Unhappiness is like a thick, gluey mess clogging up the gears of your business. Not to worry. If you want to keep your people shiny and happy like an R.E.M. song try our 5 tips to workplace mirth and turn your productivity up to eleven! Finally, if all of this talk of engagement and productivity has left you gasping for more, here are 5 great TED Talks that explore the subject of happiness from all angles. At Growth Engineering, we want to help you engage your people and turn them into superstars. If you want to know how we do it, check out our Archives of Awesome to choose from our massive library of white papers!  The post Happiness creates Engagement (Video) appeared first on Growth Engineering.