Although still in its infancy, gamification has the potential to be an effective candidate engagement tool in APAC.
By The Editors
A recent study from HRO Today and PeopleScout found that the use of gamification in HR is still new in the APAC region and varies greatly in the individual countries that comprise this region. Where is it most popular? Talent acquisition and employee training programmes see the value in adding gamification elements. It is also a great tool for building an organisation’s talent pool
Organisations are considering gamification because they want a competitive edge. The concept is inspired by video games, and companies are looking to interact with candidates in a way that’s familiar to them. The research found that millennials, particularly males, are the demographic who will first be exposed to gamification.
Specific Findings
1. Plans for implementation. For those organisations that haven’t implemented gamification, 26 per cent plan to do so within one year (see Figure 1). In contrast, 58 per cent have no plans to leverage gamification strategies. Respondents with no plans to implement gamification or who plan to implement gamification in over two years account for 66 per cent of respondents, which suggest that only one-third of companies in the APAC region currently use gamification.
2. How companies are using gamification. Gamification is being employed for more than just recruiting. Amongst the organisations that reported using gamification, 67 per cent use it for both talent acquisition and training current employees (see Figure 2).
3. How gamification is used for talent acquisition. Keeping candidates engaged with the company is the most prevalent use of gamification, with 60 per cent of respondents indicating they used it for that purpose (see Figure 3). Forty per cent of respondents leverage gamification for building the size of the talent pool. This is a strategy to keep candidates engaged. By maintaining contact with potential candidates, organisations can contact them easily when an opportunity arises.
4. How is gamification is used to evaluate candidate skills. For respondents who leverage gamification to evaluate candidate skills, 50 per cent are measuring creative thinking (see Figure 4). Assessing and building skill sets were also popular reasons.
5. Recruiting areas for gamification. Seventy-five per cent of study participants use gamification for campus/graduate recruiting (see Figure 5). Millennials are the most likely to respond to gamification as they are the first generation to grow up alongside technology. Males in particular are more inclined to respond to the interaction gamification offers, and one-half of respondents use gamification in engineering applications. Engineering is a technical occupation where objectives are usually clear and measurable. Gaming lends itself well to the type of tasks engineers frequently engage in.
6. Effectiveness of gamification in candidate engagement. Currently, there is no consensus about the effectiveness of gamification in candidate engagement. One-half of respondents report that it is effective, 25 per cent say it’s ineffective, and the other 25 per cent are undecided (see Figure 6). Gamification is still new in APAC, and there are a limited number of companies that use it there; only once more data is collected and analysed can definitive conclusions can be made.