Let the games begin: how gamification can reduce idling in heavy industries

Published: 2022-06-21
Written by: Linn Björklund
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Breaking bad habits is hard, and forcing change top-down in bigger organisations is ineffective. That’s why you need to implement engaging elements into your heavy industries’ transformation, and gamification is a terrific tool for that. In this post, we’ll show you how activating core motivators can boost organisation-wide behavioural change.

The power of play

The idea of work being the opposite of “fun” is an outdated concept. As the need for employee engagement is at an all-time high, you need to connect with your employees on a more complex level. You must motivate, engage, and incentivise them to help them build lasting positive habits, and you do this through emotional connection.

Having fun helps us break bad habits by adding emotional reinforcement. It disproves the binary between “work vs fun” and drives change from the ground up, making it the perfect tool for empowering your employees.

5 motivators that turn “work” into “fun”

Below, we’re listing the intrinsic and extrinsic motivators you can use to create a gamification experience to help employees break a bad habit:

Motivator 1: Community

How can you make your employees feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves?

It’s a human condition to strive to be part of something meaningful, where our actions make a difference. With the right digital tools, your employees can see their efforts add up to something more significant than the sum of their daily tasks. Maybe it’s competing together as a team against other similar sites?

Motivator 2: Accomplishment

We all love the feeling of accomplishing something great.

Comparison is a great way to spark that emotion. Try comparing one wheel loader against another – which one did best? Make sure to praise the winner.

Motivator 3: Ownership

We protect what’s ours.

That’s why it’s a good idea to give frontline employees first-hand results on who’s improving the most. When there’s immediate feedback on our work and achievements, we get more involved.

Motivator 4: Social influence

Who doesn’t like a little friendly competition?

Don’t underestimate the importance of workplace banter. If an employee knows what they need to do to beat their colleague, you can bet they will do it so that they can brag about it in the break room.

Motivator 5: Avoidance

Gamification doesn’t have to be all fun and play.

It can also trigger emotions of loss. Not wanting something bad to happen is a powerful tool when working with behavioural change, because who wants to place last at the site?

Gamification as a way to end excessive idling in heavy industry

At CheckProof, we decided to put these motivators into practice and launched our new feature, Fleet Optimisation, to eliminate excessive idling by frontline employees.

Excessive idling is a bad practice that’s survived for decades, and as the value of your fleet depends on running time, high idle times harm both your operations and the environment. It increases your CO2 emissions and fuel costs while simultaneously reducing your fleet’s lifespan and resale value.

It’s the definition of a bad habit, but when management asks the frontline to stop, the behavioural change usually only lasts a couple of days. That’s why we designed Fleet Optimisation from the ground up.

CheckProof’s new gamification feature can monitor, benchmark, and compare active and idle time for each machine, vehicle, and site. It allows frontline employees to engage in a friendly competition to see who can reduce their idling the most, and managers can use push and pull factors to reward good behaviour and follow up on unwanted behaviour.

Would you also like to reduce your site’s idling? If your company is already using CheckProof, you can simply contact us to get help setting up the new feature.

Not an active CheckProof user yet? Start by booking a 30-minute personalised demo.

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