Everyone who’s ever been a teacher, trainer, or facilitator knows humans tend to have short attention spans. The ding of a chat message, a red dot on an app icon, or a ‘short’ Instagram break are just a few examples of the competition your training program is up against.

Creating games is the best way to provide quick yet effective training. Three to five-minute games can effectively drive home the key points of a training program while keeping your learner’s attention. There’s a game mechanic for every learning need, from simple memorisation to higher-level deductive reasoning.

Plus, since training games are ‘practice by doing,’ learners retain up to 75% of what they learn, a 25% to 70% increase over other forms of training. Training games offer:

• Better Learning Retention
• Instant Feedback
• Prompt Behaviour Change
• Learner Data

The following case study details how a leading digital customer experience company improved its training program with games. This international company provides services across 32 countries in 50+ supported languages with 70 global delivery centers and digital studios.

 

Targeting Training Goals and Measuring Results

The company had noticed a disconnect between their customers’ specific employee training goals & KPIs and the training results being measured. They wanted to find a cost-efficient and effective solution that could target those specific company training needs for both new-hire employees and existing, more seasoned employees.

 

Could Gamification Engage New Hires and Experienced Employees?

While they had tried training games in the past, the company didn’t want to go through a lengthy design and development process for gamified training.

Their need for something easy to customise and quick to implement was met in The Training Arcade®, a library of 11 pre-built game templates (including JEOPARDY!® and Wheel of Fortune®) that are easily customised and can be deployed to as many learners as needed.

The goal was to efficiently deliver a better understanding of existing or new company procedures and processes and drive increased learner engagement. The software also helped empower the trainers to deploy training modules and materials more effectively and efficiently.

Finding a solution resonating with multiple generations of learners across all applicable global locales was also important.

 

More Games, More Players, and More Accuracy

• Since incorporating The Training Arcade into their training programs, the company’s trainers have created more than 500 training games and have seen over 30,000 unique players.
• Additionally, there have been over 140,000 game sessions played—an average replayability of 4.6 sessions per learner.
• Player accuracy has increased from 62% to 70%, meaning players are answering more questions correctly out of the total number of quiz questions they are being asked.
• After gamification was rolled out, employees displayed improved engagement, performance, and faster knowledge retention.

The plug-and-play nature of the software empowered the trainers to work alongside content developers to create effective, easily deployed training content.

Lastly, all those 140,000+ game sessions produced valuable insights into their employees’ knowledge. Games can reveal individual and group engagement levels and improve training ROI by giving insight into knowledge gaps, individual behaviors, and group comparisons. In-person educators and trainers know how difficult it is to obtain this type of analysis in an instructor-led or classroom setting.

The game analytics were a key element that helped the company understand how much time was being invested, where the training was failing, or what topics they needed to focus more on to make their onboarding and upskilling more effective.

With a blend of fun, a dash of competition, and a whole lot of data behind the scenes, games are allowing companies across industries to increase training efficiency and knowledge retention.

 

Stephen Baer 

Chief Creative Officer at ELB Learning