Five Benefits of using Gamification in DEI

Five Benefits of using Gamification in DEI

Trumpets out. You’ve done it! You’ve got approval to advance your Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) strategy or start developing your strategic roadmap. Bringing all stakeholders on board wasn’t easy, but you did it. Now, you might be wondering:

“I want to do everything! Where do I start?”

“How can we ensure our efforts are effective?”

“How can we ensure our DEI strategy is sustainable?”

These billion-dollar questions perplex many corporations. Often, this uncertainty leads to yet another unconscious bias workshop, which ticks a box but doesn’t bring real behavior change. This cycle can cause ‘DEI-fatigue’ and maintain the status quo.

But what if there was a way to bring sustainable change towards an inclusive workplace? Discover the benefits of gamification in DEI and how it can transform your strategy.

Building Empathy: The Key to Effective DEI Interventions

Understanding the Limitations of Traditional DEI Training

Let’s delve deeper into unconscious bias, a major area of DEI investment. Corporations invest in this to create awareness—a central theme in the DEI industry. Awareness can lead to behavioral change, which is crucial for workplace transformation. This includes fostering gender-inclusive language, mutual understanding, and allyship.

For corporations with multiple offices aiming for behavioral change, the go-to solution has often been e-learnings. However, while e-learnings are cost-effective, they lack engagement. Employees click through them out of obligation, diminishing their effectiveness. Clearly, e-learnings aren’t the answer. We need a solution that sparks excitement and fosters empathy.

The Rise of Gamification in DEI

Empathy is the true catalyst for behavioral change. Recognizing this, a new industry is emerging to address these needs. The solution? Trumpet roll…

Gamification.

In this blog we will explore with you why gamification is best suited for creating DEI related interventions that are focused on storytelling, creating empathy and behavioral change. 

We claim gamification is one of the best suited techniques to incorporate in DEI interventions in order to create behavioral change that will make you successful in you DEI objectives and mission. 

We will look into trends, the real reasons why DEI programs fail and provide you with a recipe to do it better. 

Because you deserve better.

Emerging Trends: Gamification in DEI

Gamification in the context of DEI has a short history. While the use of games in educational contexts and also the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is not new, the concept of applying game design principles to non-game contexts like DEI is a more recent development and on the rise at corporates.

Employees value the use of gamification on the workplace. The 2019 survey of TalentLMS showed that:

• Employees say gamification makes them feel more productive (89%) and happier (88%) at work.
• 33% would like more game-like features in their employee training software
• 78% of the respondents say that gamification in the recruiting process would make a company more desirable

 Recruitment and hiring processes

And to focus on that last point. Gamification is on the rise in recruitment and hiring processes to promote diversity and reduce bias. For example, Pymetrics is a gamified recruitment platform that uses neuroscience and AI to assess candidates based on cognitive and emotional traits, rather than traditional qualifications like education and experience. This can help reduce bias and promote diversity in the hiring process.

But gamification is also being integrated into employee training and development programs, as it has been shown to be an effective way to promote active learning and behavior change. For example, companies like Accenture and Deloitte have developed gamified training programs to promote DEI awareness and skills among their employees.

Overall, the use of gamification in the DEI industry is an exciting trend that has the potential to promote empathy, understanding, and behavior change among employees and candidates alike.

Today, gamification is being used in a variety of DEI contexts, including employee training, recruitment and hiring, and awareness-raising campaigns.

According to scientometric review on the influence of gamification on behavior change there is a trend now where we see gamification moving towards promoting environmental awareness, sustainability and well-being behaviors.  

This means gamification brings opportunities!

Why Most DEI programs fail

Let’s first start with a step back. You came here because you probably want advice on how to make your DEI strategy successful. Cause according to the research done by Harvard (a.o) there is an uncomfortable truth: most DEI programs fail.  

This is probably not the message you wanted to hear. But in order to make your program successful it is important to understand this. 

Looking at the reasons why they fail there are several reasons standing out:

1. Emphasis on compliance: training is often implemented from a compliance point of view and obligatory, often full of negative messaging presenting people who follow the training with feelings of dread. This can also be seen from a focus on formal regulations and grievance procedures. The main message here is ‘comply or suffer’. This leads to an increase in ‘DEI fatigue’. 
2. Lack of autonomy: the interventions being implemented focus too much on telling you what you can and can not do and not enough on intrinsic motivation, shared values and goals. The focus on what you can and can not do provides employees with a lack of feeling of autonomy and resistance to change while DEI is and should be about resolving inequalities and achieving justice as also explained by Lily Zheng in the book DEI deconstructed.
3. No or limited budget: there is an underestimation of the time, money and effort needed in order to improve DEI as also explained by Zheng. This then leads to backlash because employees do not see the standards and values being embodied that they would expect from an inclusive organization. 

And, well there are many other reasons why DEI programs fail, some honorable mentions here would be for leadership commitment and a lack of metrics and accountability.

The spending loop

But change comes from small steps. Looking at all that you can do, where is the most value, the highest return on investment towards an inclusive workplace? 

According to a McKinsey SurveyEmployee engagement is strongly linked with a sense of inclusion. Those who feel very included are more likely than others to say they feel excited by and committed to their organizations.

Thus, in order to engage employees, loads of money is invested in more unconscious bias workshops that often stand alone and do not bring change. Workshops which are focused on sharing information, in the heads for 2 hours and after that forgotten. Or worse, have a reverse effect because who wants to be told they are racist, sexist and homophobic? 

And this creates an interesting paradigm because on the one hand corporate organizations want to be as effective as possible when it comes to learning and development and on the other hand they spend their time and money on initiatives that need more money to fix the damage done afterward.

Gamification to Drive DEI Success: Engage, Expose, Encourage

The magic answer is in the ‘how’. From the same quoted research by Harvard there are three principles to apply where we know from research that quite some companies have consistently received positive results with, the three E’s:

They are: 

1. 1. Engage: an important concept here is cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance occurs when beliefs and actions don’t align. People often ease this discomfort by adjusting their beliefs or behavior. For example, promoting diversity and inclusion can lead managers to see themselves as champions of diversity and inclusion.

• Exposure (to people from different groups): the research on this end already goes back to the World War II. During World War II, General Dwight Eisenhower faced a shortage of troops and asked for black volunteers. Sociologist Samuel Stouffer found that white soldiers who worked with black platoons showed less racial prejudice and were more willing to collaborate with black soldiers than those in segregated companies. The key here? Working towards a common goal as equals was the key to overcoming bias.

1. Encourage (social accountability for change): social accountability tactic relies on our desire to look good to others. In an experiment, trainee teachers in Israel graded essays by Jewish students with Ashkenazic or Sephardic names. They gave better grades to Ashkenazic essays and lower grades to Sephardic essays, but this difference vanished when they were told they would discuss their grading with peers. This made them judge the work on merit.

Looking at Harvard’s three E’s solution on engagement, exposure and encourage social accountability, taking into account the need to battle ‘DEI fatigue’ and accommodate autonomy it is a wonder that not more research has been done on the effect of gamification on DEI programs. Engagement can drive empathy. Empathy can drive behavioral change. And behavioral change is what we are aiming for with DEI programs. Let’s break this down. 

Benefits Gamification brings

What exactly is gamification? Gamification is the use of game design elements, such as points, badges, leaderboards and other mechanics, in non-game contexts to motivate and engage people. Essentially, it involves applying the principles of game design to non-game situations, such as active learning or productivity tasks, to increase engagement, motivation, and participation.

Gamification and Behavioral Change

A lot of research has been done around gamification and how it is successful in creating empathy in order to drive motivation, engagement and behavioral change. 

To understand why motivation and engagement are so important in behavioral change we have to look at the self-determination theory of human motivation. Self-determination theory (SDT) rests on the three principles of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy is about making choices and being responsible for it. Competence is about overcoming challenges towards success. And relatedness is about social status and the connection with others.

Five Benefits of using Gamification in DEI

We can see 5 benefits using gamification in DEI which also gets supported by different research:

1. To combat ‘DEI fatigue’: increased engagement and participation: Gamification can help increase engagement and participation in DEI interventions by making learning more interactive and enjoyable.
2. To extend the transfer of knowledge: improved retention and transfer of knowledge: Gamification can also help improve retention and transfer of knowledge by making learning more memorable and reinforcing active learning through repetition. It provides opportunities for experimentation and exploration. By creating a safe environment to try out new behaviors and ideas, gamification can encourage creativity and innovation. This can lead to new solutions and approaches to DEI challenges.
3. To increased motivation and behavior change: Gamification can also increase motivation and promote behavior change by providing rewards and incentives for learning and taking action related to the SDT as well as by providing feedback on progress and encouraging positive behavior, gamification can reinforce desired behaviors and habits.
4. To reduce bias: Gamification can also help reduce bias and increase empathy in DEI interventions by providing opportunities for perspective-taking and cross-cultural understanding. By designing games that reflect diverse perspectives and experiences, gamification can help participants develop empathy and understanding for different groups. This can lead to increased awareness and decreased bias.
5. To increase team building and collaboration: gamification can help enhance team building and collaboration by providing opportunities for group problem-solving and teamwork.

Finally from a DEI strategy perspective, gamification can provide opportunities for data collection and evaluation. By tracking participant engagement, behavior, and progress, gamification can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of DEI interventions. This can inform future interventions and improve their impact. A DEI expert can help you unlocking these 5 benefits of gamification in DEI.

How to implement gamified learning

Gamification provides opportunities and according to a recent article by Harvard, also results in terms of employee performance. The three success factor here are:

1. Enthusiasm about the use of gamification to managers and employees. Gamification is fun and it is good to show that it is fun. Leadership participation is (again) key. “Leaders who visibly play while in the office are more likely to boost employee participation and business results.”
2. The more engaged the employees are the better the results will be, but also less engaged employees will show improvement.
3. Patience, it is a marathon. Tracking and measuring results is very important. In the evaluation section we give some tips how you might do that.

Thus. looking at the different DEI related fields there is potential to be seen all across the employee life cycle. From recruiting to onboarding, to development, retention and separation. All of these relate in the end to inclusion on the workplace. A DEI expert can help you with the implementation of applying gamification in your DEI interventions.

Risks/Challenges

It is important to not only look at the bright side. There are also pitfalls that can also undermine the positive effect gamification can bring. We share three key ones here to keep in mind:

1. Be aware to not reinforce stereotypes and biases, a DEI expert can help here to become more around the use of stereotypes and biases as well as the insights on behavioral change and how to reinforce positive behaviors.
2. Do not focus too much on the competition as this can lead to feelings of exclusion of certain groups that score less points or badges on the game.
3. Since you are designing for diversity, equity and inclusion, keep also cultural differences and accessibility in mind. A DEI expert can provide insights on how to design a game that is inclusive and sensitive to the diversity of participants. 

Effective Evaluation: Measuring the Impact of Gamification in DEI

Measuring is or should be an important part of your DEI strategy, this is one of the key areas that keeps coming back. Some quick tips to help you with this. 

• Make use of pre-and post intervention surveys where you measure changes in perceived level of inclusion, understanding of DEI strategy and policies;
• Collect feedback from the participants, this can also be done through team interviews or focus groups;
• Track the level of engagement and involvement by looking at collected points, badges and completion rate of your inclusion game.

A DEI expert can help evaluate the effectiveness of the game by providing insights on what metrics to track and how to measure success. They can help ensure that the game is evaluated based on its impact on your DEI outcomes.

The Role of the DEI Expert

Including a DEI expert in the process of gamification of DEI interventions can bring several benefits, especially to provide guidance and support throughout the design, implementation, and evaluation stages. They would work closely with the game designers to ensure that the game is aligned with the organization’s DEI goals and values, and they would provide insights on how to design the game to be inclusive, engaging, and effective in promoting DEI outcomes. They would also be responsible for evaluating the impact of the game and making recommendations for improvement.

Key Insights on Leveraging Gamification for DEI Success

1. Gamification is a rising trend

Gamification is increasingly being integrated into employee training and development programs to promote DEI awareness and skills among employees because it has been shown to be an effective way to promote learning and behavior change.

2. DEI Programs often fail 

DEI programs often fail due to a compliance-based approach, lack of autonomy, and inadequate investment, which leads to DEI fatigue and resistance to change.

3. Gamification can be leveraged to Promote DEI in the Workplace

Gamification can be an effective tool in promoting DEI in the workplace by increasing engagement, motivation, and behavior change among employees. Harvard’s three E’s solution can be enhanced by gamification to combat DEI fatigue, improve retention and transfer of knowledge, reduce bias, increase team building and collaboration, and provide opportunities for data collection and evaluation.

4. Enthusiasm, Engagement, and Patience are Key in the process

Gamification can improve employee performance if there is enthusiasm about its use, employee engagement is high, and there is patience in measuring results. Therefore, there is potential to use gamification in different DEI related fields, from recruiting to separation, with the help of a DEI expert.

5. Awareness is needed around Risks and Challenges 

It is crucial to consider the potential risks and challenges associated with gamification, such as reinforcing stereotypes and biases, exclusion of certain groups through competition, and cultural differences and accessibility. A DEI expert can provide valuable insights on how to design a game that is inclusive and sensitive to the diversity of participants.

6. Measuring impact in DEI Gamification is key

Measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of a gamified DEI intervention is crucial for achieving positive outcomes. By collecting feedback from participants, tracking engagement and involvement, and using pre- and post-intervention surveys, organizations can measure changes in perceived levels of inclusion and understanding of DEI policies. Seek the guidance of a DEI expert to ensure that the evaluation is based on relevant metrics and is aligned with the organization’s DEI goals.

7. Unlocking the Power of DEI Gamification

The involvement of a DEI expert can be highly beneficial in the process of gamifying DEI interventions as they can provide valuable guidance and support throughout the design, implementation, and evaluation stages, ensuring that the game aligns with the organization’s DEI goals and values, and is inclusive, engaging, and effective in promoting DEI outcomes.

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