The gamification of different work tasks remains an area where studies have focused mainly on conceptual considerations. This chapter focuses on the gamification process in facility services jobs – cleaning and maintenance. In general, gamification can improve productivity and workplace well-being. Better motivation is supposed to lead to better results and more enjoyable work. This chapter describes the process of gamifying facility services jobs, from the interviews of the staff to the implementation of the custom-made application, WorkAI. Eighteen employees participated in the pilot study, filled in a questionnaire, and attended semi-structured end-interview sessions. This chapter shows how personnel perceived the gamified solution and its possible effects on the employees and their work. Based on the results, the gamified solution must be easy to adapt and should not disturb work routines. This application's main benefit lies in the employee's self-reflection and self-evaluation.
TopIntroduction
Gamification is often described as the use of video-game elements to improve user engagement and experience with non-game initiatives (Deterding et al, 2011, 1). Benefits of gamification have been widely acknowledged in recent years and it has been studied from several viewpoints. Gamification has been previously implemented for example in education (Landers & Landers, 2014; Clark, Tannersmith & Killingsworth 2015), data-collection (Downes-le Guin, Baker, Mechling, & Ruyle, 2012), health (Bellotti et al. 2010; Jones, Madden, & Wengreen, 2014), marketing (Hamari, 2013, 2015) and environmental protection (Gustafsson, Katzeff, & Bang, 2009).
Gamification in work has also been in the interest of research for a while now. (e.g., Arai, Sakamoto & Washizaki, 2014; Fernandes et al., 2012). It has been seen supporting user engagement and enhancing positive patterns in service use, such as increasing user activity, social interaction, or quality and productivity of actions (Hamari et al. 2014; Hamari 2013). Based on e.g., Hamari et al. (2014) research, these desired use patterns are considered to emerge because of positive, intrinsically motivating (Ryan & Deci 2000) “gameful” experiences (Huotari & Hamari 2012) brought by game/motivational affordances implemented into a service. (Hamari, Koivisto & Sarsa 2014)
According to Sailer, et al. (2017), game design elements can deliberately be used to modify non-game contexts such as working environments to address motivational mechanisms, especially when well designed and built upon well-established implementation models. (Sailer, Hense, Mayr & Mandi 2017, 378) gamification primarily aims to increase users’ positive motivations towards given activities or use of technology (Hamari & Koivisto 2015; Huotari & Hamari 2016) It has been suggested that more and more of all organizations will have gamified parts in their processes in the future (Morschheuser, Werder, Hamari & Abe 2017)
Scholars in the field of workplace settings have argued that the use of game elements in the workplace setting might increase intrinsic motivation and thereby the meaning of work (Nicholson, 2012; Rosso, Dekas, & Wrzesniewski, 2010). Gamification is used to make work activities more enjoyable and interesting in schools, health care and business. Reward schemes can help achieve this through performance‐dependent points, increasing levels of difficulties, leader boards, and achievement badges (Nicholson, 2015). However, there is still a need for empirically based knowledge on gamification and, it has not been studied elaborately in business organizations, i.e., real‐life professional settings. (Obrescu et al. 2014; Hamari et al. 2014; Pogrebtsova et al. 2017; Lamberts et al. 2016; Hoffman et al. 2017).