Why it is important to digitize a recruiter’s achievements: the Ukrainian-style gamification

A recruiter’s workday is often predictable and achievements are not always obvious to others. But what can be said – often the recruiter himself/herself does not always notice how good he/she is and how cool everything (or almost everything) he/she does. So why not celebrate the day when you have 100 or 1,000 interviews and fill the first 10 or 100 vacancies? Is it possible to make it so that the job starts with enthusiasm rather than self-forcing? Let’s figure out what gamification is and how it works.

What is gamification at work?

Gamification is the implementation of game approaches into everyday routine work. In the world practice, gamification is known in sales, business simulations, training, internal PR – to raise corporate spirit. Its main task is to cheer up employees, add an element of competition to the work process, positively influence motivation and productivity.

There are such methods as

• Achievements – to fix the achievements,
• Ratings – the principle of competition,
• Bonuses – encouragement for a job well done,
• Competitions – to stimulate teamwork,
• Quests – as a challenge at work, etc.

These are the most common methods, in fact, there are many more. And the scale can be different – depending on the goal and financial capabilities. The range of ideas – from motivating stickers in the office to grand intranet projects. The main thing is the originality of the concept, flawlessly related to the business process. If everything is “okay” with this, the ultimate goals of gamification are achieved. For example, staff training becomes easier, team climate becomes healthier, it is easier to introduce new rules and standards, leaders become more obvious, external and internal recruiting becomes more advanced. The advantages could be a long list.

The numbers for the benefit of gaming

According to TalenLMS research, gamification increases productivity of 89% of employees. 69% of them plan to stay with the company longer if it uses unconventional means of motivation. And these are already nice numbers.

Beyond that,

• 80% of employees have a positive view of gamification at work
• 82% – feel happier
• 85% – are ready to devote more time to gamified software
• 87% of respondents think gamification makes them more productive.

That is why more and more companies are resorting to gamification in staff motivation. And what is really nice – the introduction of gaming techniques increases employee engagement by 48% (!), according to Anadea.

Overcoming the “Monday blues”: for the first time in Ukrainian recruiting

Why does gamification make people happy and motivated? Because the process of getting into a game is always slower and more interesting than trying to get into work on a cloudy Monday morning. Game mechanics increase engagement, allowing you to move from the pessimistic “I don’t want to+but I have to” model to the more appealing “I can+I want to” model. After all, money is not always everything, but self-actualization, recognition of success, social status on the team, etc. – this is different. And gamification really copes with it, because a person gets an additional game context with competitive elements, prizes and visually represented growth of experience. It is this interesting and rewarding virtual world that changes one’s attitude to one’s job for the better.

Volodymyr Barkhat

An Coppens, a Belgian gamification expert, states that gamification may prove to be the area in which great resources will be invested. In her opinion, gamification success starts where motivation and recognition of employees’ achievements come first. Volodymyr Barkhat, CEO of the Ukrainian automated recruiting system CleverStaff, shares the opinion of An Coppens.

“To distinguish successes, encourage achievements, and support recruiters in intermediate results is the task of managers. But they do not always have the time, technical ability, trivial strength and desire. Therefore, the task of motivating themselves and doing their job so far remains entirely on the recruiters,” Volodymyr shares his observations.

A software system for recruiting can theoretically take care of this, but so far no one in the world has such functionality. But in Ukraine it already exists and is being tested. A breakthrough in this issue will be eventually announced – along with the release of gamification, which will be presented by CleverStaff in the near future.

Why is it so important to digitize recruiter`s achievements?

“Over the years of working with hundreds of recruiters, we have accumulated a lot of unique data about user activity and results. So we thought – why not digitize these results in order to celebrate recruiters’ achievements in a creative, not boring way”, says Volodymyr. – This is how the idea of gamifying recruiting in our system came about.

CleverStaff gamification is based on several key steps for successful recruiting, usually not marked as important, as achievements. By performing them, the recruiter moves up and down the level scale. Therefore, it is extremely important to digitize these accomplishments. Even the humblest and smallest. Why not celebrate a good working week if it was more successful than the previous one? Why not celebrate mastering a new feature? Well, what about 100 interviews conducted and 100 vacancies filled? All of these events often remain behind the scenes, despite the fact that they are new acquaintances, new people, new pages in their careers, which they start with the recruiters who hired them.

Gamification in recruiting: when you are a superhero

By delicately adding a competitive element to your recruiting system, you can also see who on the recruiting team has been the best within the last month/quarter/year. And which month was the most successful for you personally and what should be done to surpass it. But it is not just a matter of working harder – many recruiters usually work overtime. After all, if you are a true recruiting hero in your team – gamification is sure to highlight your leadership, give you a gimmick, provide recognition and respect from your colleagues.

“Our version of gamification carefully digitizes users’ real experiences and achievements, and successes are necessarily vividly and intellectually rewarded. That is what makes normal recruitment exciting, inspiring to move on and achieve more. I will say more – because of gamification in CleverStaff, we started to understand an imperceptible at first sight, but very significant part of recruiters’ work. These achievements should be highlighted and made obvious, vividly visualized and filled with new meaning. In the near future, we will present our project. I have a feeling that our recruiters will be satisfied, and most importantly they will see once again how much they can and do” – says Volodymyr.

P.S. Well, let’s wait. According to insider information, gamification in CleverStaff has a creative concept, with which the system will become a cultural product. We will tell more details in the next article, therefore, do not miss it!