Gamification to motivate the new generation of employees

At the "Wise and Win Future Export Series Forum" held by Global Sources' management media "CEConline", Xi Lei, the head of Hay Group's major customer of productized solutions in China, deeply analyzed the new generation The psychology and thinking mode of employees, telling everyone how to lead the new generation.

Hay Group is a global management consulting firm that assists leaders of organizations in turning strategy into reality.

Xi Lei: Today, the post-80s and post-90s are a very important group that we are about to manage. In the next few years, our post-80s and post-90s will become the main body of the workplace. To understand.

We visited a large number of companies, communicated with leaders, and asked them about the characteristics of the post-80s and 90s. We made a summary and found that the post-80s and post-90s are a very contradictory group, one can see that they are exciting, there are many shining places, they are network masters, they have a lot of Internet thinking, and they pass our work in a witty way. Different forms are displayed, very innovative, and they also value money; some other characteristics of them can be confusing. On the one hand, they are unwilling to follow the trend, and sometimes even have some things, and they are not willing to sacrifice for money. Work, family, pay attention to work-life balance. It is also seen that this group of people is looking for recognition, and they want to promote their development through encouragement and recognition.

The employees born in the 80s and 90s have a different mindset from the older generation. The older generation is used to having a hard time. They think about whether to have a stable job and a stable family. They will think about safety. A little more, 80s and 90s will seek personal dreams. We found that the needs of the new generation of employees are all above Maslow. There are three points that have been mentioned many times. I'm leaving right now. I talked to a few guests at dinner just now, just because I'm upset, no matter how high the salary is, I'll leave. There are also advocating freedom, they do not want to have too many rules to restrain them, and respect, their management methods are more to help them achieve and respect some of their achievements and efforts.

There is nothing more attractive and reserved for them than helping them realize their dreams and ideas. The second thing that might be a little bit more appealing is to give them a guide to their values and recognition in the company.

We must first change the way of thinking of our managers, not to require them by means of management and commands. The first aspect is whether we can find a breakthrough from the perspective of managers, we must try to change our management style.

Among the companies we surveyed, 20% of the leaders are high-performing leaders, under their leadership, employee morale is very high, 15% can be not so prominent, and 10% A leader is called a leader who does not add value. In other words, he is not the same as him, and it may be better than him, but we found that 58% of the employees do one thing all day, which is to attack employees, which is called stabbing enthusiasm. Many leaders use traditional methods to lead employees, and the morale they build is not so good. It is not so effective for ordinary employees, and it will have a greater impact on the post-80s and 90s.

Talking about leadership style, everyone thinks how these things can help the company. From the perspective of consulting companies, changing their leadership style can improve the performance of the company and retain employees born in the 1980s and 1990s. It is very important, we have done a lot of research, and everyone wants to influence the performance of an organization, or what are the factors that your company makes money today or not, there may be finance, there may be new technologies, and there is one factor that the company does not need to do. Too much investment can also grow. This thing is called organizational atmosphere. It means whether employees are happy working in your company. Whether they are happy or not is not determined by the boss. Of course, the boss has a lot of factors. It is determined by the direct superior. How much? As for the decision, 30% can affect the performance of the company. What does it mean? If you assume that our turnover is 100 million yuan, pay attention to it through leading cadres at all levels, and increase it to 130 million yuan next year.

Therefore, it is necessary to communicate more with the employees born in the 1980s and 1990s, and listen to their voices and ideas. In fact, in the past, it was found that employees of many companies were dissatisfied with the company. They feel that the company does not have a good mechanism that allows them to have a dialogue with high-level executives, and that there is no such mechanism to have the right and space for dialogue and expression, which makes them very upset. If they are upset for a long time, they will leave.

Secondly, let them participate more, or have a sense of participation, what is it We arranged for him to tell him to do this, and everyone felt that there was no sense of accomplishment. Including our leaders, we must be honest with employees and enterprises, and employees born in the 1980s and 1990s are a little idealistic. Just now I talked about how to lead employees through their own management style. At present, there is a trend, not only in China, but globally, there is a trend for this group management method called gamification. A well-known psychologist mentioned a point of view, what is the opposite of playing, many times Opposite to work, in fact, the opposite of play is inner depression. When it is eliminated, the work force will be released better. There is an example. There is a company in Huizhou. Their employees are in the staff dormitory. I was worried that they would play games and stop going to work after they had the internet. They didn’t turn on the internet for a long time, and found that the employees’ status was not getting better. Later, they tried to make some open attempts to open this kind of WIFI permission to the employees, and later found that they Did they play all night as they thought, but instead their efficiency improved, and then the network was completely turned on. In the same way, the employee's depression will be eliminated, and the efficiency will be better.

Let's take a look at how Internet games affect people from a physiological level. When you see young employees playing World of Warcraft, they can skip meals and sleep, and they have the same enthusiasm as chicken blood. Are they at work? If they have such enthusiasm, it would be great if they have it. There are physiological reasons behind them. When they play, their bodies will secrete a series of things, including the hormones of the adrenal glands. Arouse resonance, and through laughter, things that are not good in the body will be correspondingly reduced, this vitality and state will be better, this series of substances secreted to produce a refreshing effect on the body, we call it endogenous opium | Games can bring about a physical response. There is also behind the psychology behind the physiology. Everyone has three mental states when playing the game. One is that I want to win. I may not have it in normal times. I will see it at work. It may not be so good if two employees are arranged to do one thing. , If you let a group of people do it, see who can make the company's headlines and the company's top list. In this way, the motivation of employees to win is mobilized. Second, I don't want to be alone, I want to have a close relationship with others. There is another person who wants to prove himself. These three major demands are very typical psychological demands of everyone, but behind this psychological demand, there must be a psychological background to support us in doing such a thing. What is the first thing, I want to win. Behind it is the achievement motivation that everyone under the iceberg model has. After this is inspired, I don’t want to admit defeat, I want to work hard, including those born in the 1980s and 1990s, who have strong motivation. If there is no desire to show at work, They are suppressed, and they are very depressed at work. The second one is affinity motivation, and there is influence motivation, that is, what you do can influence others. Let’s recall whether there are such employees who are very good teachers, want to share their achievements, and get the approval of leaders. This is influence. Motivation, if this kind of motivation is not released to a certain extent, it will not be good. Is the desire to share strong in the 80s and 90s? Very strong, those born in the 70s only think when they need it, and the desire to share is very strong for those born in the 80s and 90s. If there is such an opportunity and platform in the company for them to share, they will be released and obtained. Recognition, I think the vitality of their work will be released. Therefore, can we consider whether each person has such a strong psychological motivation and psychological performance behind it, can we use gamification to mobilize their motivation, for example, seeing badges and points in the game are all mobilization Everyone's motivation for success, these things can be considered. Now I see many companies manage their employees in this way, which is called the point system. There are points for a series of activities every day, and points for being late and leaving early. The ranking is published every month, and the motivation of employees to succeed is stimulated.

And through the group to stimulate their affinity motivation and influence motivation, they are all stimulated through small games. There are many similar methods. I want to say that gamification is a trend. The concept of gamification falls into the management of each enterprise. There are many different practices. I know that there is an Internet company that makes games in Shanghai. He has already realized it. For all employees, the management of employees is like playing a game, there are tasks and points, and your performance is recorded in this way. I know that there is a very well-known credit card company in China in the south, and now it has begun to gamify project team management for its high-potential employees born in the 1980s and 1990s, developed effective applications, and put them in their mobile phones to let them Interaction, which is very good in this way, motivates employees to work actively. Hay Group has also made attempts in this regard. Through our interviews with companies and employees, we found that many companies recruited students with excellent knowledge and skills, but not so good in interpersonal communication. Not only that, our new generation Employees don’t agree with their lack of social skills. You tell them what is the most important competitiveness in the workplace. Some people will say that I graduated from Tsinghua University, and they will take things above the iceberg very seriously. But in terms of social skills, how to communicate and interact well with others, and how to use empathy to interact with others, he will not think this is a very important skill. We found that this is very important. When we do training to emphasize the importance of this aspect, our employees may be more disgusted or even more resilient. If we use gamification to let them play, let them know that emotional intelligence and cooperation with others are very important in the process of playing. The important thing is that this effect is very good. We are doing some experiments now. In some enterprises, we use the effective method of starting a career in the workplace to let enterprises try it out and put it on some employees who have just joined the company. Through this constant interaction Let them realize that they have an understanding of themselves, such as small interactions, ask them how you think about yourself, put some labels, like some labels on Q|Q, let employees label themselves, and then you can invite your colleagues, leaders Give you some feedback and see what labels they put on you. Putting the two labels together, you know that there will be such a big gap in the eyes of others. It is easier for them to accept this kind of interaction and WeChat. .

Therefore, you can also consider using this method in the future. These four very key principles of gamification are the places that you can refer to, whether there is a clear goal for doing this, because the post-80s and 90s The sense of purpose is very strong, including rules and rules awareness. We usually say that the post-80s and 90s come from playing games. Each game has rules, and there is room for flexible expansion behind the rules. It’s boring, if there is room for expansion, it will be very interesting, and it will stimulate the enthusiasm of employees, including the feedback system. If I only do something by myself, it will be boring without feedback. By grasping this principle, I think it can better mobilize everyone's enthusiasm. There is also a trend. We conducted an effective survey with another company. By 2015, at least 70% of the global top 2000 companies will launch a gamified application. At least in China, we have seen some high-paying Internet companies do this. Try, I think this is the way and method we can try in the future. But there is a principle behind this. The opposite of play is not work but depression. Through play, our employees can be released. In addition to the managerial level just mentioned, gamification is also a place for further discussion in the future.