Using Gamification for Real life impact

At Atiom, we’re avid believers of Behavior Technology. Behavior Tech is a category that uses specific technology to create habits and behaviors. Our focus is to ensure service excellence in the frontline workforce. But how do we encourage habit-building and behavioral change? 

We believe in the power of our tools to bring about change through the various touch points. We ensure that knowledge is achieved, retrieved, and retained longer in the mind through gamification.

Gamification is a design approach method centered around human motivation which extracts elements from games and applies them to real-world activities. We have backed up the creation of Atiom around The Octalysis Framework. It leverages various psychological principles and innate human tendencies which contributes to its effectiveness in engaging and motivating individuals through game-based learning. 

Founded by a pioneer of gamification, Yu-Kai Choou, the Octalysis framework is used to understand the drivers behind human motivation and engagement to create experiences that effectively motivate and engage people. It is based on the concept of eight Octalysis core drives that underlie human motivation. These drives are organized into two groups: the Left Brain Core Drives and the Right Brain Core Drives.

Left Brain Core Drives

The Left Brain Core Drives are Extrinsic Motivators – you are motivated by wanting to obtain something, whether it be a goal, an item, or anything you cannot obtain. These are aspects that make one look within themselves to drive those achievements. They are responsible for the feeling of meaning, accomplishment, empowerment, and ownership. 

1. Meaning: This drive refers to the sense of purpose, social influence, and making a meaningful impact on the world. It motivates individuals to pursue activities that align with their beliefs, values, and desire to contribute to something greater than themselves.
   
   
2. Accomplishment: The drive for achievement, mastery, and completion. It motivates individuals to seek success, overcome challenges, and make progress.
   
   
3. Empowerment: This drive is about feeling in control, making choices, and having autonomy. It motivates individuals to feel a sense of ownership and control over their actions.
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4. Ownership: The drive to possess or control something. It motivates individuals to invest in or take responsibility for a specific task, idea, or outcome.

Right Brain Core Drives

Right Brain Core Drives are known as Intrinsic Motivators. These drivers are not motivated by a goal or reward but they still encourage you to use your creativity, hang out with friends, or feel the suspense of unpredictability. Doing these activities in itself provides a feeling of reward. This includes social influence, scarcity, unpredictability and avoidance. 

1. Social Influence: This drive involves the desire to connect, influence, and relate to others. It motivates individuals to collaborate, socialize, and seek social validation.
   
   
2. Scarcity: The drive arising from the fear of missing out or the desire for limited resources. It motivates individuals to act when there is a perceived scarcity or urgency.
   
   
3. Unpredictability: The drive for unpredictability, curiosity, and surprise. It motivates individuals through the anticipation of what comes next, creating intrigue and excitement.
   
   
4. Avoidance: The drive to avoid pain, loss, or negative outcomes. It motivates individuals to take action to prevent negative consequences.

The gamified experiences work for us as they are engaging and compelling. Gamification using Octalysis’s core drives encourages taps into human psychology which explains why it appeals to us. 

Different types of game techniques push us forward differently: some do so in an inspiring and empowering way, while some in a manipulative and obsessive manner. 

By understanding and implementing these Core Drives, Atiom has been crafted in such a way that it creates engaging experiences catering to intrinsic and extrinsic motivators to promote positive user experiences.

How Atiom uses the Octalysis Framework

Below is Yu-kai Chou's gamification model of the effectiveness of Atiom. We target both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators to encourage our frontline workforce to use the app. 

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1. Meaning: When it comes to providing meaning and purpose, Atiom does so by being a platform for consistent gamified training tools with material relevant to learning and relearning. You can visit a module as many times as you like to go through the training the organization has set out for you. This creates a sense of purpose as it will enhance your on-the-job knowledge leading to providing better and more effective service for customers.
   
   
2. Accomplishment: One of the most gratifying aspects of gamified learning on Atiom has to be the feeling of accomplishment you feel.
   
   From the exciting revelation of winners on the leaderboard at the end of the month, to our prize achievement system to daily quests to surpassing daily goals and our accomplishment- sharing feature, we’re sure it will leave you feeling internally fulfilled and accomplished. 
   
   So whether you’re the top performer of a certain module or you’re someone who’s received the most number of appreciations from peers, Atiom promotes you to feel attained everyday!
   
   

3. Empowerments: A strong part of Atiom is the feeling of empowerment we intend to make the frontline employees feel. Being off the desk and away from the corporate office, it can be difficult for employees to feel taken care of and empowered by the management. 
   
   With Atiom, we’re aware that appreciation and recognition go a long way, whether it's from a fellow colleague or a member of the management team. It may be through the learning or employee engagement games, it makes you leave work feeling a little more empowered.
   
   Another way Atiom is set to empower is by letting you choose your own learning path. Most of the time, you can decide which courses to learn in which order.
   
   Also, with the game items you have, you’re able to apply them in ways you think works best to earn maximum points. There are also lots of opportunities to advance and be rewarded for doing well. This can be done through earning karma credits for being helpful on the forums, or getting more points by doing well on tests. These are all ways Atiom empowers you to succeed!
   
   

4. Ownership: The sense of meaning, accomplishment, and empowerment also contribute to the sense of ownership and accountability. Atiom creates that sense with the tokens, prizes and items you can earn through their achievements. Some other ways this is done through the personalised goal-setting and fulfilling the quests set out for them. 
   
   Being able to excel in a module set out by your manager or completing a game well gives them a sense of pride in your work and stimulates motivation to perform even better at work.
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5. Social influence: Again, for the frontline workforce who don't spend as much time with each other at the workplace due to the nature of their work, social interactions are very much limited. Through Atiom, we encourage relationship development with functions like the Newsfeed, Community Forum and the Appreciation Hall. 
   
   As an internal communication platform, Atiom offers the “Newsfeed” function for management to release important information, company updates and procedures. A function like that helps decentralized frontliners to receive the updates they need while feeling included despite not being in the office day-in day-out. 
   
   Community Forum allows freedom of expression builds on the relationship and camaraderie of the colleagues which makes them feel more connected and cared for at work. This results in happier and more productive employees.
   
   Appreciation Hall, as the name suggests is for employees to give thanks to their managers, employees and peers. This fosters a sense of value and recognition in the employee which makes them feel more connected to their company.
   
   

6. Scarcity: Atiom uses mechanisms such as a limited number of study modules, “daily quests” and daily streak with relevance to scarcity. To encourage competitors to stay on top, users are allowed to use 3 study tokens each day in order to keep their streak. This enforces daily check-ins so that users don’t fall behind and miss out on quests to push them on top.
   
   
7. Employees are able to receive monthly prizes or rewards from their companies which stirs up healthy competition between employees, driving more engagement and involvement in the workplace.
   
   
8. Unpredictability: On Atiom, the gamified elements add to the unpredictability of the app. With the randomised reward wheel and daily quests built into the app, it keeps you wanting to stay on and play to rack up points which can later be used for other purposes. This motivates and inspires you to engage more to receive more.
    
9. Avoidance: Atiom has a “streak” count which alerts and rewards you for logging into the app for consecutive days. With social interaction and games, we want to create a “FOMO” or “fear of missing out” between the employees which encourages them to get on the app to learn and interact with their colleagues more. 

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Conclusion

The Octalysis principles in action serve as a directional tool to understand the depths of human motivation and behavior. As you can see, the Octalysis framework and human behavior are tied closely. This aids in the creation of more engaging and motivating experiences through knowledge acquisition, marketing, product design, and more! See how Atiom uses gamification in the workplace with these functionalities in our features here.

The Octalysis framework combines and implements these core drives through a gamified system to understand and design experiences that leverage these motivations effectively. Designers use the framework to create engaging and motivational experiences by strategically incorporating elements that activate one or more of these drives.

By analyzing the user journey and identifying which core drives are engaged or lacking in a system or experience, designers can modify the design to better align with the intended motivational factors, aiming to increase user engagement, retention, and overall satisfaction.

The success of gamification in motivating and engaging individuals lies in its ability to leverage these psychological factors, making tasks more compelling, enjoyable, and rewarding, ultimately changing behaviors in the workplace. This aids in driving increased participation and productivity amongst frontline employees. Read more about how Behavioral Technology Drives Workplace Performance here. 

Reference: 

Chou, Y. (2023, September 17). The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design. https://yukaichou.com/gamification-examples/octalysis-complete-gamification-framework/