Gamified learning is becoming a trend among organizations looking to improve knowledge retention and performance. This trend can have many benefits, including reduced stress among employees.

What Does Gamified Learning Do?

Gamified learning is applying game-based mechanics and game design elements in non-game contexts. The goal is to engage people’s intrinsic motivation to make them more efficient or effective at completing a task.

Gamification learning comes in many forms, but the most common ones are:

  • Badges: Badges are one of the most popular tools used by gamification designers. These visual representations tell learners how close they are to achieving a goal.
  • Ratings: Ratings can measure learners’ progress and success rates, and can motivate them to improve.
  • Points: Points are another way to track learners’ progress and motivate them to learn.

Learning is essential for professional growth, but finding time to learn can be challenging for employees struggling with time management, which has been proven to cause stress and can result in low job performance. Gamified learning can help by reducing learning time and making it more fun.

There are many other reasons why gamified learning can reduce work-related stress, including:

1. Gamified Learning Creates a Playful Approach to the Learning Process

Gamifying the learning process is a way to stimulate an employee’s brain activity and make learning more fun. It also helps employees retain information better by giving them a goal or purpose they want to achieve.

When you gamify learning, you encourage your employees to explore their curiosity, creativity and willingness to learn.

2. The Reward of Playing Games Is Intrinsic

Research on the intrinsic benefits of games found that they help improve memory, problem-solving skills, and creativity.

Playing a game is often seen as a reward, making it intrinsically rewarding. This means that employees will look forward to learning.

3. In Gamification, Employees Don’t Learn Because They Have To, but Because They Want To

Gamification involves leveraging an employee’s natural desire for autonomy, mastery and purpose. Workers want to feel like they have control over their lives, are improving themselves and are doing something meaningful with their time.

When you gamify an activity, process or training program, you turn it into a game that encourages people to do what you want them to do for fun instead of being forced or coerced into doing it by management.

4. Helps Employees Feel in Control of Their Learning Process

Gamified learning helps employees feel in control of their learning process by giving them a sense of agency and autonomy.

Through game-like features such as rewards, points and leaderboards, employees can track their progress and compete with their peers, which helps them feel more motivated and engaged in the learning process.

Additionally, gamified learning often allows employees to choose their learning paths and customize their learning experiences, which gives them a greater sense of ownership and control over their learning.

When people feel like they have control over their work environment, their overall well-being improves and they have higher levels of job satisfaction.

5. Games Are Designed To Be Mentally Engaging and Stimulating

How do games help with mental stimulation? They provide an avenue for your brain to take a break from the monotony of daily life by encouraging you to think about something else, namely, how to win!

Games also offer an escape from reality by taking players into a virtual world where they can exist as someone else or somewhere else. It’s this escapism that makes them so popular with people who want some relief from their daily lives.

6. Gaming Improves Social Interaction

One of the most common assumptions about gaming is that it’s a solitary activity and that gamers are isolated from society. However, a growing body of research shows that gaming improves social interaction. One study found that playing video games with increases workplace social interaction and teamwork skills.

Through game-like features such as challenges and competitions, gamified learning can foster a sense of collaboration and competition among learners, which can help them build connections and relationships with their peers.

Gamified learning often allows learners to interact with and provide feedback, which can help them to support each other in their learning journey. Gamified learning also often allows learners to learn from and with real-world experts, which can help them build connections and networks with professionals in their field.

In Conclusion

Gamified training can help encourage employees to learn new skills and keep them up-to-date with the latest changes in their field. And this is an important aspect of reducing stress in the workplace.

Ultimately, if you have employees who aren’t engaged and happy with their jobs, they aren’t going to be as productive. They might even lead to a high turnover rate, which can be costly for any business.