MANAGING MICROLEARNING IN THE WORKPLACE: BENEFITS OF MICROLEARNING AND GAMIFICATION TO DRIVE SAFETY CULTURE
When employees are truly enjoying themselves on the job, your company can expect higher productivity, increased morale, enhanced knowledge retention and a greater contribution to the company safety culture. An effective way to achieve all the above is through gamification. As a form of microlearning, gamification refers to the practice of integrating gaming elements into a variety of applications to create an engaging, enjoyable and highly effective learning experience.
Your company can use gamification to drive home the safety message in a number of ways. Use it to create healthy workplace competition, strengthen the e-learning process, and provide real-world scenarios where employees need to make fast, accurate — and safe — decisions.
Safety and compliance go hand in hand, and gamification can help ensure all your teams are well-versed in both. Here you can develop a gamification platform that enables different teams to earn points they can redeem for prizes. Points are earned based on the overall safety and compliance knowledge and performance each team exhibits.
Weekly or daily group quizzes are one way to enable teams to rack up points. Observation and work performance rankings can be another. Posting the ongoing team scores in a noticeable location can keep motivation high, as can awarding virtual trophies and badges as point counts increase. The team with the most points at the end of the month or quarter can also be given an extra-special prize.
In the bid to gain the highest points for their team, employees are apt to cheer on their fellow team members while buckling down themselves to maximize point earnings.
Gamification can be used within e-learning to establish interactive training methods that reinforce your safety culture on a daily basis. Post notices or play mini-videos of process reminders on digital screens in the break room and lunch room. Administer mandatory pop quizzes on policies or regulations. Workers can again be rewarded in the form of points, which they can then trade for prizes.
Putting workers in virtual scenarios is another way gamification can be used to reinforce safety policies, practices and the use of equipment. Employees can enter a virtual workplace on the screen, where they move through different stages as they progress.
The first stage may involve explaining the features and functions of a safety product to a new worker. The second stage could be set up to allow workers the hands-on use of tools and equipment in a variety of virtual scenarios. A third stage could put workers into the middle of an emergency scenario, testing their safety knowledge on best practices for averting disaster and staying safe.
No matter how your company chooses to use gamification to drive safety culture in the workplace, the results can be significant. With the ability to promote friendly competition, provide a sense of achievement and motivate employees to take action, gamification can be as effective as it is entertaining for everyone involved.
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