Airbaltic Case Based Analysis of Potential for Improving Employee Engagement Levels in Latvia Through Gamification Daiga Ērgle University of Latvia
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Economics and Business doi: 10.1515/eb-2016-0007 2016 / 28 AirBaltic Case Based Analysis of Potential for Improving Employee Engagement Levels in Latvia through Gamification Daiga Ērgle University of Latvia Abstract – In 2014, airBaltic Corporation introduced a gamified since 2011) that followed company restructuring in 2012, in 2014 electronic platform called Forecaster with a purpose to increase airBaltic Corporation introduced a gamified electronic platform, its employee engagement. The article considers the approach used by the organisation, analyses results, advantages and drawbacks called Forecaster, with a purpose to increase its employee en- of the organisation, and mainly formulates recommendations for gagement by keeping them better informed about business goals the organisation in order to improve impact on employee engage- as well as by gathering employee feedback in certain forms to- ment through gamification. As a result of the research, the author proposes 8 steps that are useful and applicable to any organisa- wards business decisions. tion, and as such those may serve a broader purpose than just The idea behind the game was to post in the Forecaster plat- improving airBaltic Forecaster tool. The objective of the paper is form information about different business related projects, up- to draw learnings and put forward suggestions for the organisa- tions in Latvia that are concerned with improving their employee coming decisions, business ideas, goals, etc. Posts were called engagement and demonstrate how gamification can be helpful in Forecaster Projects, and each project offered employees to voice their endeavour. their opinion, whether they believed in a particular business Keywords – Employee engagement, gamification, human re- idea, or upcoming decision was good or not so good, whether a source management. particular goal would be reached or not, etc. They were doing so through buying or selling shares of the specific Project (where buying was a behaviour in case of positive opinion and selling in I. Introduction the case of negative opinion). Certain amount of virtual money, called airBaltic coins, was allocated to each player at the begin- In the past few years, gamification has emerged as a trend ning of a game “season” (each game period lasted for about 1–2 within the business and marketing sectors, and has recently months, where winners of the game were announced at the end grabbed the attention of academics, educators and practitioners of such “season” and a new “season” launched). Project “own- (Seaborn & Fels, 2015). At this moment, some of the most com- ers”, the ones who were posting specific projects, tried to foster mon applications of gamification are in the areas of employ- discussion and comments around those, to have maximum feed- ee performance, innovation management, education, personal back from the staff and also to provide additional information in development and customer engagement (Seaborn & Fels 2015). cases description turned out to be insufficiently clear. It enabled There are different theories written about making gamification management to pitch ideas in a simple format, and staff to pro- attractive and making people feel engaged in the game. Most of vide insight in a fun way. these theories are user-centred design theories. This means that Scope of the study was to consider the approach airBaltic the user’s needs and goals are the first consideration in design- has been using, analyse results of implementing Forecaster, ad- ing gamification in order to create meaningful games (Nichol- vantages and drawbacks the organisation has experienced, and son, 2012). According to Seaborn & Fels (2015), gamification has mainly to draw recommendations for the organisation in order to been largely, though inconsistently, referred to as the selective improve impact on employee engagement through gamification. incorporation of game elements into an interactive system with- The aim of this study went beyond the benefit of one particular out a fully-fledged game as the end product (Deterding, Dixon, organisation. It was to draw learnings for other organisations Khalad, & Nacke, 2011). This can also be described as the use of in Latvia that are concerned with improving their employee game design elements in a non-game context (Deterding, Dixon, engagement levels. Khalad, & Nacke, 2011). This definition by Deterding, et al. is most widely used by different sources and practitioners. For the II. Methodology of Research purpose of the given research, this definition of gamification is also chosen. Research was mainly conducted within the organisation ana- According to a survey of Harvard business review (2013), en- lysing documents, survey reports and procedures available inter- gagement is by companies seen as a factor most likely to bring nally, as well as interviewing employees and managers. Next to success. This places engagement as one of the top business prior- quantitative data available from Employee surveys, qualitative ities for companies. Of all factors that can drive success, reduce data were used to get a deeper understanding about the current costs and increase revenue and growth, engagement is seen as a situation concerning employee engagement and Forecaster at key factor with a percentage of 71 % (HBR, 2013). airBaltic. Interviews were carried out with those employees who Experiencing lowering employee engagement several years in were behind Forecaster, with the regular users of the game, as a row (measured during annual employee commitment survey well as with non-users to understand the reasons. ©2016 Daiga Ērgle. This is an open access article licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), in the manner agreed with De Gruyter Open. 45 Economics and Business 2016 / 28 Acting Theoretical background based on the literature review served Killers Achievers the purpose to choose an applicable definition of gamification Defined by: Defined by: a focus on winning, rank a focus on obtaining status and employee engagement. It was a necessary step as gamifica- and direct peer-to-peer and achieving a preset goals tion and employee engagement are constructs used with differ- competition. quickly or completely. Engaged by: Engaged by: ent definitions. Theoretical research also allowed differentiating Leaderboards, Ranks. Achievements. engagement with the game from engagement with the company Players World and helped see how one could be used to foster the other. The- oretical research helped create a conceptual framework, which Socialites Explorers Defined by: Defined by: provided a structure for further data collection within the or- a focus on socializing and a a focus on exploring and a drive drive to develop a network to discover the unknown. ganisation through deep dive interviews. The theory provided a of friends and contacts. Engaged by: Engaged by: deeper understanding of gamification and how employees could Newsfeeds, Friends Lists, Obfuscated achievements. Chat. be engaged using Forecaster or other gamified electronic tools. Based on the theory, synthesis of a conceptual framework was Interacting described and a plan developed for designing a business game Fig. 1. Bartle’s Player Types (Bartle, 1996). like Forecaster, which would respond to the goal of achieving higher employee engagement in the organisation. Although in practice Bartle’s player types are used in game design, there is some criticism addressed by Dixon (2011). The III. Theory Review issue is that the player types were never intended to be a general typology of all digital game players; however, it is often refer- As mentioned above, for the purposes of the present research, enced out of MUD context and applied to game design generally, the author chose a gamification definition by Deterding, Dixon, and also recently in gamification. Secondly, the types may be Khalad & Nacke (2011) where they described gamification as the overlapping or mixed, yet Bartle asserts that they are mutually use of game design elements in a non-game context. exclusive. Professor of Psychology Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi has When designing a business game (just like any other), it is designed the theory of flow, which is often referred to in gamifi- very important to have a deep understanding of users and what cation because creating a feeling of flow is important for a game motivates them to engage in the game. Bartle (1996) conducted to be successful. According to the theory, flow experiences are research that contributed to this subject. His research was about those optimal and enjoyable experiences in which we feel “in player identities in a game called MUD. He pointed out that not control of our actions, masters of our own fate…we feel a sense all players played for the same reason or played in the same way. of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment” (Czikszentmihalyi, This has resulted in the classification of four types of players that 1990). Components introduced by him can also be used in gami- are often referred to in the theory about games. The four types fication to design elements that create flow in a game. Czikszent- can be identified as follows (Bartle, 1996): mihalyi (1990) describes a sense of control over the environment Achievers are interested in ACTING on the WORLD. They are as the most salient element of the flow state. The component of typical gamers playing to “win”. They give themselves game-re- control is very important for gamification. Research on human lated goals and vigorously set out to achieve them. The point of computer interaction indicated that people find computer games playing is to master the game, and make it do what you want it so captivating due to the powerful sense of control these games to do. Achievers are proud of their formal status in the game’s give their players (Ghani & Deshpande, 1994). built-in level hierarchy, and the little time it took to reach it. Explorers like INTERACTING with the WORLD. Explorers ∞ are interested in having the game surprise them. They delight in (High) Anxiety Flow Channel discovery.