Have you ever watched someone play video games? I mean, have you really watched someone? Strange things happen to a video game player’s eyes. She loses control of her mouth. She forgets to blink. She flinches and leans forward and smiles as if the imaginary video game world and the real world have merged.

This is a frightening sight for many of us. It looks like brain-washing, time-wasting, and mindlessness. But if you look closer, you might see something else: engagement. Unmistakable and unadulterated engagement.

You also see the opposite of what is happening at most workplaces. Gallup recently found that only 13% of worldwide employees are engaged with their work. Worse, 24% are what is called “actively disengaged,” meaning these disengaged employees are actually driving disengagement with other, otherwise engaged employees.

As someone who cares about member loyalty, you probably realize the danger here. How can you engage members and drive strong feelings of support and allegiance by members if you can’t engage your own, paid employees? The research supports that concern. Gallup found that engaged staffs drive 10% improvements in customer metrics like loyalty and satisfaction compared to disengaged workplaces, with 21% and 22% improvements in productivity and profitability (respectively).

Loyalty programs of yesteryear like frequent flier programs, Subway punch cards, and even the Boy Scouts badge system have understood for decades that the things that make games fun, engaging, and exciting can be applied to non-game environments as well. Only recently has this thinking been applied to the workplace. What if – the emerging world of gamification wonders – work could actually be fun? What if we focused as much on employee engagement as we did on member engagement? What if every day your workforce was working to set its own high score?

While Gartner Research has predicted that 40% of the world’s largest companies plan to use gamification as a primary method of transforming business operations, credit unions remain painfully behind the trend. I set out to change that with the creation of gameFI, the first and only gamification-powered employee engagement platform built for specifically for financial institutions. The idea was simple: if we turn the front-line employee position into a game, we can drive engagement, loyalty, and business results.

But what makes a game a game? Think about your favorite one for a minute. There’s probably a clear objective, rules, and a scoring system. There’s probably an element of surprise, or at least a dynamic, ‘never-the-same-experience-twice’ aspect. There may be social elements or competition. There is never any confusion about what you’re supposed to do, or how you are doing at any given time.

As you plan your dreaded annual performance reviews, take a second to think about how that process compares to the games you love. Quite different, isn’t it?

In the credit union space – as in many other industries – loyalty is not something that magically happens. It’s earned. It’s earned from delivering products, services, pricing, and experiences that uniquely solve problems and inspire delight. It’s earned from knowing what’s important and focusing everyone on doing it as well as possible. It’s about engaging members and employees with something extraordinary.

So, how do you get started? Start thinking like a game designer. When it comes to your employees' workplace experiences, are you:

• Keeping score?

• Breaking down large missions into smaller, less daunting challenges?

• Communicating clear "win" conditions?

• Shortening feedback loops?

• Seeking "flow" (appropriately assigning challenges based on skill level)?

• Avoiding predictability/monotony?

• Providing social/shareable elements to individual or group performance?

• Providing both quantitative and qualitative feedback?

• Having fun?

A "no" to any of these questions doesn't mean your workplace is broken. It simply means there's more that can be done to fully engage your employees with the important work to be done.

I couldn’t be more excited about presenting: “Financial Services Gamification: Driving Engagement and Loyalty with Fun” at Satmetrix/Member Loyalty Group’s Loyalty Live! Event, March 4-5, in Phoenix. We’ll have some fun ourselves, but more importantly we’ll learn the building blocks of a gamified system that will deliver the feedback and focus your credit union needs to drive the results you crave. 

Join us for Loyalty Live! so you don't miss the opportunity to:

• Be part of the ONLY Credit Union Voice of the Member Conference
• Discover new ways to engage your entire organization with your Voice of the Member Program
• Learn from Keynote Presenter Jeanne Bliss, designer of Customer Experience Management Programs for Allstate, Coldwell Banker, Mazda and Microsoft, and the author of Chief Customer Officer and I Love You More than My Dog
• Network with your peers and share best practices
• Discuss challenges with NPS experts and learn new ways to enhance your program

Who should attend? Executive sponsors of the Voice of the Member program, retail delivery leaders and program managers will all benefit. Consider sending a team from your credit union. 

See you there!