Making the Ogres Smile and Pay for It Conceptual Framework Gamification Application in Workplace

Figure 4. Conceptual Framework of the Behavioural Effects and Financial Impact of the Application of Gamification in Philippine Call Centers.

Employees Perception of Gamification

Perceived Effects on: 1. Motivation 2. Relationships 3. Performance

Based on the review of literature, it can be seen that the perception by the frontline employees of the application of gamification in the workplace will affect their extrinsic and intrinsic motivations that in turn will affect their relationship with co-workers, supervisors and managers creating a service climate that will affect employee service performance and service quality. These relationships, service performance and service quality can and will be monitored the performance management software. Pseudogamification can be said to be existing, implicitly or otherwise, if the information gathered by the performance management software are provided only to the managers and supervisors who shall then present it to the frontline employee in periodic job performance evaluation sessions for reward or punishment. It can be said to be gamification, as academically and operationally defined by Deterning, Nicholson and Julius, is in place if real-time feedback is also provided to the frontline employees concerned plus the provision for on-demand cliniquing and coaching (lifeline) sessions by supervisors and team mates. Linking Gamification with Labor Laws The Philippine wage orders in the National Capital Region (http://www.nwpc.dole.gov.ph/ pages/download/ncr/reg%20ncr%20-%20wo%2017.pdf) and Region IV-A (CALABARZON) (http://www.nwpc.dole.gov.ph/pages/download/reg_04a/reg%2004%20-%20wo%2015.pdf) now include Tier-2 Productivity Bonus Pay for individual and group performance complete with formula for determining how much will be paid to each of the management and frontline staff if they meet performance targets in terms of the financial returns from outbound sales and inbound cross-selling activities. The mock-up 3 x 1.71 ShrekStat screen display widget (see Figure 5 below) is intended to serve as a real-time feedback mechanism that the call center agent can see on her (or his) monitor. It displays the call center agents name, avatar, Tier-1 salary (or pay) grade and salary step increment

(level). Of interest to the frontline employee are the two (2) progress bars which indicate how far or how near she is in getting a promotion (i.e., from provisionary to regular technician, from technician to analyst to specialist to manager) or getting a competency-based raise in pay (i.e., entry-level to contributing to journey to advanced technician). The target points in the ShrekStat widget shall be as set by Productivity Pay Compliance Committee for the agent concerned as well as for her team who shall know where they stand based on the points they each earned. From the information given in the display, it can be assumed that there are five members in the team. Heather has exceeded her minimum point to qualify for individual performance bonus pay but her team still has to earn more points to get the group performance bonus. It can also be seen that Heather accounted for 35.7% of group points even though she only got 65% customer satisfaction (i.e., cool shreks) with 29% unsatisfied customers (angry shreks). It can be deduced that 6% of the callers did not respond to the voice prompt that says: If you are satisfied with the handling of your call for assistance, press 1. If you are not satisfied, press 2. We shall give you a call after reviewing your conversation with our customer care representative. Thank you.

Figure 5. ShrekStat Screen Display Widget

Note that the 29% unsatisfied customers rating could have been worse if Heather did not use two of her lifeline buttons to obtain advise or help from her supervisor or team mates. For that matter, the 65% satisfied customers rating could have been better. What needs to be assessed by management is why she still has three lifelines available although she already surpassed her individual points target with +36 Satisfaction Rating. Could this be attributed to past performance achievements, competency-based learning (training and mentoring) modules completed, or both? Like the highly popular Arcane Legends MMORPG that can be accessed by desktops and notebooks, ShrekStat can be programmed to be accessible by android smartphones and tablets. The call center agent concerned can show off her stats to friends and family as well as access the Achievement Badge Status board to review her performance and learning achievement badges or even decide on what achievement badges she will sign up for as quests. Of course, she will have to have obtained the pre-requisite performance and learning badges beforehand. The learning badges can be accredited under the Open Badge Project (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges) as well as serve as one of the criteria for position and pay grade-up or level-up.

For comments and suggestions for the design and metrics of the ShrekStat call center gamification software, post it to: https://www.facebook.com/ralf.maderazo/
Digitally signed by ShrekStat DN: cn=ShrekStat, o=De La Salle University, ou=Behavioural Science, email=maderazoralf@yahoo.com, c=PH Date: 2013.07.30 20:07:41 +08'00'