How gamification in corporate learning can improve engagement

WRITTEN BY: KATE BIRCH

Last year, as part of a company-wide strategy to promote digital transformation among employees, global banking group BBVA introduced a new and improved upskilling system.

Designed to reinforce, update, and deepen employee knowledge, the training system was created in a digital, gamified environment where employees can decide their own development pathway and learn via different methods, from videos and podcasts to simulators and game-based learning experiences.

Courses completed in the new system increased sevenfold in the first 48 days, compared to the bank’s previous digital learning platform.

For BBVA, recently named Europe’s most sustainable bank by S&P for a third consecutive year, gamification is an extremely important element of its training system design –as it helps to “cement employee motivation and engagement and therefore commitment to development”, says Pilar Concejo, BBVA’s Global Head of Learning. “It allows us to design experiences in which employees feel much more identified and increase their level of commitment to the learning process.”

And what business wouldn’t want to achieve that? Having a workforce that is motivated, engaged, and committed is the holy grail in post-pandemic business – where hybrid working reigns supreme, digital transformation is accelerating and employee burnout is rising.