Gamification in the workplace: supercharging the employee experience to drive productivity (part 4: Achievers)

Bartle’s ‘Achievers’ player type are characterised by an urge to be the best, without necessarily wanting to see others fail (unlike 'Killers'). Here's how to technology - such as Oracle CRM solutions - using gamification, in order to meet a Achiever’s employee experience (EX) needs and boost productivity.

If you haven’t already read my introductory blog post to the Oracle CRM gamification series, including a summary of Bartle’s four player types, you can read it here.

The Achievers: Reach for the stars #

Achievers are driven to move forwards and collect accolades. They love the satisfaction from reaching a goal and want to be the best. The distinction from killers is that they do not necessarily want to see others fail. Their own achievement is more important than what others do around them. They are a minority but significant at 10% of the general population.

Achievers thrive in goal-orientated settings as they are motivated to reach new more complex goals as they progress, taking pride in a job well done.

Service desk supremacy #

Christina works on a service desk for a major software company and fixes the problems too complicated for the call centre staff. Each customer can have highly customised solutions and therefore have new problems never seen before. Her company wants issues fixed as soon as possible and her boss will set her individual targets for each ticket based on complexity. Christina loves to challenge herself and beat the target.

Using gamification elements can greater engage Christina. In the above instance, Oracle Service Cloud has been integrated with a tailored Oracle CRM solution (Siebel CRM). On each service request, the target is clearly displayed and a timer which indicates the amount of time left to complete her task.

Whenever the target is beaten, Christina gets profile points that add up to give badges and streaks. For example, a ‘Wizard’ badge can be rewarded if she completed a task in a quarter of the target time; a ‘Professor’ badge could represent the completion of five tasks which she has been referred to by a colleague, and a ‘Merlin’ badge might represent the completion of 20 tasks in a quarter of the target.

Christina naturally wants to achieve and by adding progress bars, points and badges, it makes it easier for her to see her achievements and set her own targets.

Project Manager progress #

Luke works for a networking company as an order manager. Orders are very complicated and can take months to arrange if new cables need to be laid, as permission needs to be gained. The company prides itself on delivering faster than its competitors and order managers are driven by delivering increasingly complex projects in as short a time possible.

If we look at the example dashboard above which has been customised in Oracle CRM, you can see that projects are split into multiple stages, some of which run concurrently, making it difficult to track current progress. Using multiple progress bars to show current days used for different phases, Luke can see how much time he has to beat the target. This will focus his mind to get the high priority tasks done and, once complete, he’ll feel a real sense of achievement.

Oracle CRM - One size doesn't fit all #

Achievers are motivated by meeting personal targets and are particularly goal-driven. By introducing clear goals into CRMs such as Oracle CRM, companies are feeding their employees’ motivation, leading to improved overall staff performance.

Other organisations are not as goal specific and interaction with others or competition may be more important. These differences are enough to define someone as a completely different player type. Be sure to check in for the other installments in this blog series which look at Explorers, Killers and Socialisers, and see if these apply to you or your team!