Photo credit: Anthony Kwan/Bloomberg
Who isn’t playing Pokemon Go?
Love it or hate it, you just can’t ignore the latest mobile gaming craze.
‘Craze’ is not an exaggeration.
Far-flung corners of Spottiswoode Park, Tampines, and other secret “Poke Stops” in Singapore are yielding spontaneous gatherings of Pokezombies. Adults, youths, people of all faiths and callings who congregate in the name of the mighty Pokemon Go.
Since its launch in Singapore on August 6, there has been a frenzy of downloads and a backlog of Pokemon-related social media updates.
SimilarWeb reports that globally, there are more installs of Pokémon Go on Android than Tinder, and players use the app, on average, 43 minutes a day. That is more than the average time spent on WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, and other incredibly popular applications.
Looking at behaviour that borders on mass hysteria, I couldn’t help but compare this with how the various promises of gamification at the workplace have so far been more sizzle than steak.
If only companies could mobilise their people in the same way that Pokemon Go has its gamers. If only employee engagement was a reality and not a statistical artefact. If only.
Turning to the science of employee engagement
The way to deal with this is to take a hard look at what Pokemon Go has gotten right, and compare that to what the typical company gets wrong in engaging its employees.
Edward Deci’s experiments on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in the 1970s laid the foundation for Daniel Pink’s work on intrinsic motivation – the three elements which can be harnessed to tap into genuine employee engagement. These are: autonomy, mastery and purpose.
As we will see, the game mechanics of Pokemon Go manages to touch on all three of these in powerful ways. Applying the science of motivation and addictive game mechanics may be a long shot, but if the results even vaguely approach the success of the game, it’ll be worth the effort.
Element 1: Autonomy
One of the most important elements of engagement is autonomy.
Pink writes that we are all born with an inner drive, that even as children it is natural to play and explore on our own. One of the core items which global employee surveys have found to drive engagement at work is “My opinions seem to count.”
Element 2: Mastery
Element 3: Purpose
Gotta catch them all!
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