Workplace training: it’s boring and takes you away from doing actual work, right? Wrong!
At TLScontact, it’s vital that our Operations employees worldwide work to consistently high standards. All of our staff must master the relevant visa application processes, as well as our company tools and platforms, to be able to deliver the high-quality service that our government clients expect from us.
For this reason, training plays a major role throughout the employee life cycle. We run extensive induction training for new hires, and we also need to ensure continuous on-the-job training, to constantly refresh our employees’ knowledge and update them on changes to procedures and tools. To help us do that more effectively, we are taking advantage of one of the most exciting developments in workplace training in years: gamification. But what is gamification, exactly?
In essence, it’s the use of game design elements in non-game environments in order to motivate and engage people to carry on, just like games do. For example, games use rewards – such as points, experience points (or XP), tokens, badges, levelling up or filling a progress bar – to get users to keep playing. Take it a step further and introduce leaderboards, and you’re instantly getting people to compete with each other.
Gamification is used in many different ways. Whether we realise it or not, it’s already all around us, from driving social media usage to enhancing customer engagement. New applications are being developed all the time, such as in the fields of military recruitment, scientific research, brainstorming, promoting exercise, technology design and crowdsourcing, to name a few.
But one of its most exciting applications is in education and training. In the past, training has been a necessary but sometimes painful experience for both managers and their team members: uninspiring, time-consuming, and often costly and difficult to arrange for both geographical reasons and in terms of loss of productivity.
Gamified training to drive employee performance
At TLScontact, Operations staff training in the past had been defined and delivered locally. But as our government clients’ requirements have become stricter over time, we’ve decided to take a more global, standardised approach to training, to ensure the same level of employee expertise no matter where they work. So, since early 2024, we’ve offered gamified training.
The purpose is to improve performance through training and learning, while using gamification to build motivation and stimulate positive competition thanks to a new, fun approach. Employees win points by completing short, interactive training modules. These points position them on a leaderboard, where they can see how they compare to their colleagues. They can also use their points as a virtual currency to “buy” items or awards on the platform.
What’s great about gamified training is that employees can do it for a few minutes a day, at their own pace. The training is designed to be interactive and fun, using short modules, and we add new content to the platform on a weekly basis.
For example, we have modules to test employees’ knowledge on client standard operating procedures, our added value services, key technology products we use, and diversity, equity and inclusion. We’ve also developed training modules on relevant topics such as modern slavery, and last year, for the Paris Olympics, we included content on the dedicated process put in place by the French authorities to facilitate visa applications from people accredited by the Organising Committee of the Olympic Games.
The aim is for all our Operations staff to get the same training, be they in Antananarivo, London or Bangkok, ensuring greater consistency in our service delivery across our global operations. Employees can do training modules quickly and easily from the comfort of their own desks, without losing productivity. And training, instead of being a chore, is now fun – and rewarding.
Our Centre Manager in Douala, Cameroon, sums it up well: “The new platform combines business and pleasure, training with fun and satisfaction. That’s the point of gamification! It’s a pleasant learning experience without pressure. Every day, our team develops and refreshes their knowledge.
“They also gain confidence and motivation to manage our daily challenges in operations, especially in dealing with different customer profiles and attitudes. The platform truly adds value to our employees’ continuous training. We keep on winning the game!”
Article written by Susana Melo Morais
Training Management and Standard Operating Procedures Lead