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Just as the guest experience follows a journey from the moment the guest enters the hotel or restaurant, so too must staff learning follow a meaningful journey to help ensure they can create that great experience that will see guests telling their friends and coming back for more.
The concept of 'gamification' was big news at this month's Learning Technologies event at Olympia. A buzz word that is expected not to buzz for very long, before it's part of the everyday status quo for learning and an absolute 'must have' if we are to engage our mobile and app savvy Generation Y learners. Generation Y (those born between 1980 and 1999) are expected to make up over 50% of the UK workforce by 2018 and with 'training & development' their most desired workplace benefit (PWC Millenials at Work report) we need to know how to engage them. This notion of gamification to motivate and engage learners uses a medley of familiar game strategies like point scoring, leader boards, rules of play, random rewards or 'luck', the ability to level up and unlock new areas of play, social collaboration and status, and gentle nudging to encourage staff to not only complete their learning but enjoy it and retain it too.
Research has shown that 6 weeks after a face to face training event 85% of the knowledge 'learnt' on a course has been lost and there's no way of knowing what that remaining 15% actually is. A key benefit of a blended elearning programme is that learning content can be broken down into bite size pieces available to be used again and again whenever required. Combine this with an immersive learning portal experience and responsive 'gamified' content accessed via a smartphone (which nearly all our Millennial learners have) and you are providing accessible learning in a familiar format via a medium best suited to learner's inevitable attention-switching and multi-tasking behaviour.
Just as engagement is key to providing effective learning opportunities to staff, then so too is the idea of re-engagement. Just like with games that offer players the chance to try again, compete, win to unlock more knowledge and level up, learning content can be designed with these key features to keep learners coming back for more. The key is to create a 'gamified' approach across the board from your learning platform (LMS), the content available as well as to the design of blended pathways of learning.
In the modern world information has become so disposable and constantly competes for our attention. If we employ the right tools, techniques and technologies in our workplace that learners are so used to socially and recreationally, we will be able to create engaging content that instead of being disposable can be indispensable, memorable and constantly available (whilst of course being completely trackable).
Our GEMacademy team can help you to source, host and track gamified learning content that matches your brand identity, and to blend it into structured hospitality career pathways that help your teams to improve the guest experience.
Photo credit: freevideolectures.com
