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- [00:01]
Jesse Harriot
You see, what we're actually trying to do here is we're just. We're trying to get a feel for how people spend their day at work. So if you would. Would you walk us through a typical day for you?
- [00:15]
Peter Gibbons
Yeah.
- [00:15]
Jesse Harriot
Great.
- [00:17]
Peter Gibbons
Well, I generally come in at least 15 minutes late. I use the side door. That way lumber can't see me.
- [00:26]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
And.
- [00:26]
Peter Gibbons
And after that, I just sort of space out for about an hour.
- [00:30]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
Telling me, space out?
- [00:33]
Peter Gibbons
Yeah, I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week, I probably only do about 15 minutes of real, actual work.
- [00:48]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
That was a scene from the 1999 20th Century Studios film Office Space. Even if you're not familiar with the film, you're probably familiar with the subject matter. A man who's less than enthusiastic about his job and shows little to no motivation. When the film came out, millions of Americans empathized with the characters. But the film brought up an awkward why do so many American workers feel so disconnected at work? Office space came out 25 years ago, but these questions are still largely relevant. As employees relate less to their jobs. Businesses can suffer from low productivity, which in turn could affect employee job security. So how do we mend a broken workplace? Atech Innovation is offering a solution for this. It's called gamification.
- [01:36]
Jesse Harriot
COVID 19 has undoubtedly had one of the biggest effects on the workplace. If you are working in a place where you are so isolated, you should probably make a massive change in your work life because you are spending a third of your life at work. What's obstructing our connectability? This is what gets in the way of our connection with others at work. Employees say, I don't feel appreciated or I don't feel like my leadership knows what I'm seeing. And that's where gamification really, as I say, shines a spotlight on them and make them feel appreciated. It could be as simple as sending them a branded piece of merchandise with a handwritten thank you note. We've, quote, elevated convenience over connection and just aren't in touch with human beings within the community as much as we used to be.
- [02:22]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
I'm senior tech correspondent Samantha Murphy Kelly. Welcome to the next innovation. Most people know what it's like to work in an office. You arrive in the morning and sit at your assigned desk. It may have a few trinkets or a handful of pens, maybe a photo or two. Maybe your desk is pretty bare. A desk can also feel Like a home away from home. But if the connections of the people you work with or near aren't really there, it may start to feel like a bleak way of getting a paycheck. And as a worker, you may also start to question your value at the company. It's hard to measure a person's value at work, but the personal belief is that if you're recognized for your hard work and acknowledged, you feel a sense of reward. A recent study indicates that 63% of employees do not feel recognition at work. And nearly 80% of employees admitted they'd work harder if they felt better recognized. Another study showed 89% of employees who were recognized for their hard work reported higher job satisfaction. So in an age of flooded email inboxes, virtual meetings, message boards, and more, how can companies help empower their employees? Workhuman is an Irish company that is trying to solve this problem. They specialize in helping companies around the world uplift employees by recognizing and celebrating their efforts.
- [03:49]
Jesse Harriot
And really, our mission at workhuman is to help HR and culture leaders build workplaces and companies that really put humans or people at the center of their culture. And we have a set of products we call the Work Human Cloud. And it brings different tools together to do this, to create a culture of recognition and appreciation where we encourage peers to acknowledge the contributions of other peers and really boost each other up and kind of empower the entire workforce to make work a more human and connected place.
- [04:25]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
That's Jesse Harriot, the head of workhumaniq. He focuses on expanding the company's research efforts and building out workhuman's data science capabilities, including AI and data analytics. Workhuman's employee recognition program uses a combination of artificial intelligence and data analytics to help identify the specific culture drivers at a company. It's a unique tool that enables everyone to understand the kind of values, beliefs, expectations, and even behaviors at a company, all through its trademark thank you messages on the workhuman platform.
- [05:00]
Jesse Harriot
Yeah, and we cultivate a community where people feel connected and engaged through different tools to help employees recognize one another, to help give continuous performance management feedback, to help celebrate human events, whether it be buying a new house or having a new baby or a personal milestone or achievement. Really ways for you to share your own personal journey with others inside the company. Our primary product is social recognition, and it's our foundation of the Work Human Cloud, and it's where employees can give meaningful praise and appreciation to one another and they get to say thank you and give someone credit for a job. Well, Done in their own words, using their own language. And it creates a rich tapestry of information that can be used in a lot of ways by companies.
- [05:51]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
It's pretty easy to imagine that in an office you could simply shake someone's hand or lean over the desk and say, congratulations. You'd think, if my peers are sitting beside me, why do I need software? But part of what workhuman solves is helping the biggest global companies to achieve actual business returns for recognizing its employees. And what they've noticed is that by bringing employees together in a platform dedicated to highlighting has helped their clients massively. During the post COVID 19 Covid workforce transition.
- [06:21]
Jesse Harriot
I mean, during COVID and kind of the world of work has certainly changed in multiple ways since then. And part of what we saw was really a lift in people becoming more interested in ways to, you know, engage and drive culture in virtual. Right in a virtual environment where everyone's not maybe in the office five days a week together, so you don't have those same human connections every single day.
- [06:45]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
In the early months of the pandemic, many schools, the corporate world, and life in general became home based. We learned how to rely on tools like zoom and slack in order to keep up with the demands of our jobs. Soon enough, remote work became a dominant model of working. It also became an incentive for employees who were looking to spend less time in traffic and more time finishing up assignments. The appeal of remote work flourished. You could take meetings in sweatpants, be closer to your family and restructure your schedule to your advantage. But alongside the perks came the concerns.
- [07:19]
Dr. Jessica Kriegel
It is a problem that is not just important because we care about people, but it's important because these businesses need a healthy, thriving workforce in order to be healthy and thriving themselves. Experiences shape beliefs. So experiences that people have at work in creating connection and feeling seen in being useful and providing value to something bigger than themselves, all of those give people meaning at work.
- [07:46]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
Dr. Jessica Kriegel is a workplace culture expert. One of the most striking concerns she raised from the aftermath of the pandemic was an increase in loneliness.
- [07:56]
Dr. Jessica Kriegel
What role do companies have in solving for those problem? I think a significant role having a compelling purpose for any organization, mission driven organizations, you've heard that that is so critical to helping people have a different mindset and a different perspective that will help them drive the kind of belief that will get them to take the right action and get the company the results and get people a different result for their own.
- [08:18]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
Well, a recent study says that remote workers feel lonely. 98% more often than their peers at the office and a whopping 200% more than their hybrid colleagues. A quarter of remote workers experience some kind of daily loneliness, a statistic that contributes to the loneliness epidemic in the U.S. while workers can tap into the benefits of a more flexible work life, a remote work model has triggered feelings of isolation. And as more companies expect higher productivity, many workers feel trapped by the pressure to maximize their time.
- [08:52]
Jesse Harriot
It's a social recognition software solution where you go in, you recognize someone, another employee that you saw do something very well, and then that recognition moment is shared across the company. And so others can see that. Others can see the example of what good performance looks like, and they can kind of pile on and say, congratulations, or oh, I agree, that was a really good contribution. And so it sort of has a viral aspect inside the company to really give people examples of what good looks like for that business.
- [09:23]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
Work human tries to solve the disconnect and mental pressures that online work creates. When I spoke to Jesse, he told me that workhuman does this in multiple ways. First, it focuses on culture through an AI tool called the Inclusion Advisor. The tool will ask, how do folks at your work connect? What are the behavioral tendencies? What are the cultural preferences? Employee responses are then pooled into workhuman's AI program that identifies different attitudes and preferences.
- [09:52]
Jesse Harriot
We can personalize your human experience at work based on what's important to you, using AI, Right. So we can use some of that technology to make sure you're seeing the right kinds of messages that are important to you, you're getting the insight that you need about what's happening at work, and you're able to really customize your experience.
- [10:13]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
Personalization is a key trademark of workhuman's innovation. It enables the employee to let their peers and managers know how they want to be treated at work, which lessens the pressures and anxieties at a company, whether virtual or physical. The software allows employees to identify the kind of biases and misconceptions that could hurt or offend a coworker.
- [10:34]
Jesse Harriot
And so it will scan the message for examples of, you know, certainly the obvious bias, the things that are very easy to spot, but the real focus is on the unconscious bias. So things like, you know, thanks for working nights and weekends to get that project done. It really made a difference. I know I can always count on you to do that. That sets, for example, an unrealistic expectation that someone should be working nights and weekends when we don't want to create that as a cultural norm. Or maybe you Say, wow, that was an excellent presentation. I can't believe you're right out of school and you're already making contributions that are well past, you know, other people who've had years of experience, things like that, that undermine the message of no, it's really about what you did, how it contributed to the business. The fact that you're right out of school really doesn't have anything to do with actual performance.
- [11:23]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
As you type an email or respond on a message board, the inclusion advisor can help your interaction with colleagues by flagging potential unconscious biases. As a manager, it helps you understand how to better relate to your employees.
- [11:35]
Jesse Harriot
For example, if I recognize you for doing a great job on a project and someone else gives you a couple of other nominations, a couple months down the road, you can go and redeem that for maybe a plane ticket somewhere that you want to go on a trip. And when you do that, the system will remind you of those recognition moments that really allow you to then have that moment of personal satisfaction in your life of taking a trip. And so it creates a full engagement cycle around, well, the moment that you receive the recognition was a positive experience. Then you're reminded of that when you redeem for something and then you actually get to go on that experience or purchase that item. And that creates a whole cycle of reinforcement of that good behavior that you had inside the company.
- [12:21]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
This is another key part of workhuman's initiative. It has established a kind of reward system where employees can feel the physical benefit of being recognized. Say you nail an assignment. Your manager can send a recognition note on the platform with a value assigned to it. When you've earned a certain amount of points, you can cash it out for gift cards, experiences, or a donation to a charity organization. Examples include a new kitchen appliance, a flight abroad, or a gift card to a local shop.
- [12:50]
Jesse Harriot
So as you're writing a recognition moment and you're going through that process, you're deciding who to give that recognition moment to. You're selecting a dollar value for that recognition moment and then you're writing the text. Maybe you're adding an image. You know, you're deciding how to shape that message. That's where you receive some of that guidance. So think of it like high, medium, low. That will allow somebody to say, no, this was a very important contribution. Maybe it was a multi week project and something that really made a difference for my team, or maybe it was something, you know, that didn't take as much time but still meant something to me. Then I can give A lesser amount, but those add up, right? Just like it's basically like a bank account where it's adding up over time and then you're able to go and then redeem that for things that are important to you in your personal life.
- [13:40]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
The reward system is a great way to support your colleagues, especially if they're only online. But workhuman isn't the only company doing something like this. Several other startups around the world have introduced tools to elevate company culture. But their reward system has a different purpose. It's less about celebrating company culture and more about encouraging workers to complete assignments, goals and quotas.
- [14:03]
Christian Cleveny
So the idea is basically to use the network of the employees of a company to use their own social media profile to push out information, to push out articles or whatever that comes directly from the company itself.
- [14:20]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
Christian Cleveny is an account executive for sprinklr, a marketing and consulting company. They help businesses achieve their campaign goals through a reward system that incentivizes work. They give out badges, points and awards for employees who have completed tasks or assignments. But whereas work human fosters connection among co workers, companies like sprinklr encourage employees to work independently and as fast as possible.
- [14:44]
Christian Cleveny
The idea is basically to also then have some kind of like a current streak. So how often and without, without a break, I send out different social media posts on which channels and so on and so on to more or less extrinsically motivate people to do that besides just to to invest a little bit of their time. But also then they could earn like badges. And in the end, often after a quarter or a year, there is some kind of announcement who was the most active on social media.
- [15:17]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
This is all part of a phenomenon impacting workplace culture. It's called gamification.
- [15:23]
Dr. Jessica Kriegel
So gamification is essentially using game design concepts in non game environments in an effort to increase user engagement in whatever way that may be. So in the context of the workplace, it's how can we learn from the fun and the engagement of games to make work more effective or make people more productive?
- [15:44]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
Dr. Kriegel says gamification is appealing for companies across different industries. It's all part of an effort to keep employees engaged with their work. Similar to what we mentioned earlier with Peter Gibbons in the Office Space movie. The appeal of gamification is that if people love games, chances are they'll love playing them at work. If you could win certificates or badges as you got paid, you'd probably work harder.
- [16:06]
Dr. Jessica Kriegel
And so technology companies are saying, well, people love gathering points in games, let's have them gather points. At work, you can earn points for doing productive things, or instead of being recognized with cash, we can give you points. And that will motivate some people. And so people and companies have been experimenting with how they can gamify activity in the workplace in order to incentivize behavior. Workplace culture is how people think and act. And so the gamification of workplace culture is how can we make the way people think and act shift by gamifying life.
- [16:42]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
This is why gamification has really exploded. Its market is currently worth $15 billion, and it's expected to reach 48 billion by 2020. 9. Companies that have gamified have reported a boost of employee engagement by nearly 60%. And out of 2,000 companies around the world, 70% of them are gamified.
- [17:03]
Dr. Jessica Kriegel
Companies are trying everything and anything in their power to retain their workforce to drive business results. They are under more pressure than ever before. They have change coming at them at incredible speeds. They've got AI now, they've got the next generation has entered the workforce. We're in a hybrid environment. Return to office, work from home, and who knows how many other things they're juggling. I think gamifying is one of many tools that they will throw at the wall in hopes that it will help them drive the results that they're trying to achieve.
- [17:33]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
When offices started reopening after the pandemic, people across the country felt that companies should be more flexible, like where and how they work. Some workers resisted going back to the office as the remote lifestyle was becoming more and more popular. But when companies pressured their workers to come back to the office, some employees chose to quit, leading to the great resignation.
- [17:55]
Jesse Harriot
In America, 2021 has been the year of the great resignation, otherwise known as the big quit. Millions of Americans are leaving their jobs, over 4 million every month. When an employee only does what's required, it's called quiet quitting. No, it's called doing your job. What a lot of people do in quiet quitting is they recognize that additional effort is not rewarded. And we didn't treat people as human beings. We treated them as line items, disposable line items.
- [18:23]
Dr. Jessica Kriegel
Ultimately, nothing feels good or rewarding to us. Enter quiet quitting. Why do anything fully when nothing is rewarding enough?
- [18:32]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
Trends like the great Resignation or quiet quitting, which refers to workers doing the bare minimum, kicked off a larger discussion of how companies should treat employees. If employees could easily get up and leave, there would be no guarantee that a business could thrive. Instead, gamifying the work could lessen workplace frustration and keep more employees. But that doesn't mean it's always the best solution.
- [18:55]
Dr. Hazel Grunewald
The idea of competition can be really problematic because, you know, people are then motivated by extrinsic motivators, you know, getting on the top of the leaderboard, looking at competition between their peers. And it places more of an emphasis on maybe getting those cells through and not looking to, to see what's the longevity of this, what's the long term whim.
- [19:23]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
That's Dr. Hazel Grunewald. She's a professor at Germany's ESB business school at the University of Reutlingen. She's been studying gamification for some time now, particularly the way it affects workers. When I spoke to her, she described her concern for the way gamification could encourage unhealthy competition among coworkers.
- [19:41]
Dr. Hazel Grunewald
If people don't associate the fun aspect, the idea of consent, with what's actually mandatory, that can be problematic.
- [19:52]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
In her research, Dr. Grunewald found some individuals ignore their work breaks in order to compete, like some pregnant mothers. Other companies have failed to support people who have hearing or visual disabilities, which discourages them from participating in these games. Instead of encouraging a healthy community of workers, gamification could actually do the opposite. The way some companies are using gamification highlights the disconnect between the employee and employer. Something that's always been a challenge.
- [20:19]
Dr. Jessica Kriegel
I think that employee expectations across every generation have gone up. So it really has to do, in my opinion, with the multi directional nature of information sharing now. So in the past years, everything was top down. Information moved from the top to the bottom, and it did not even move from the bottom up, nor did it move side to side within an organization. There were very specific structures for communication. Now with social media, with the advent of job boards like Blind and Glassdoor, where people can anonymously post, where people are sending each other notes, people are talking in ways that they haven't before. People are sharing salaries and it's got employers freaking out because they don't want their employees to share salaries because they used to get away with unfair pay practices, because no one would talk about it, because that was the social norm. Now that we're all sharing information more, we're seeing where management practices are not ideal, for example, and brand and culture are merging in a way that they never did before. And so people are expecting leaders to do better and they're seeing what's good, what's not good, and they're being vocal about that. And so employers, I don't think are out of touch necessarily. They are not adapting quickly enough to meet the expectations that the workforce has adapted to.
- [21:39]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
So how should companies meet these expectations and how do they ensure that employees feel valued and respected? Despite its downsides, gamification can help alleviate these concerns. It just depends on how you gamify. Both Dr. Grunewald and Dr. Kriegel said gamification is no longer a transient trend. There's a strong likelihood that it's here to stay.
- [22:00]
Dr. Jessica Kriegel
Sometimes it's way more effective to start with a small pilot group of people who are really passionate about embracing this new thing. Get them to play with it. They'll help work out the kinks as they arise because you've identified people who are already excited about it. They are the early adopters. You don't have to do a lot of convincing with them. And then if they have successes, they'll tell the story of those successes. Storytelling is one of the most powerful experiences you can create and work to change beliefs and to create change.
- [22:27]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
Workhuman is not a company that gamifies. But social recognition platforms like the one at workhuman could stand out as a practical alternative for companies who want to strengthen and empower their workforce.
- [22:39]
Dr. Jessica Kriegel
There's so many small, minor ways in which this has already permeated our culture and I think being creative about how else we can leverage it to get the right behaviors at work, it's a win win.
- [22:50]
Jesse Harriot
People do have different ways they want to to give and receive recognition and that's why we try to create the platform to be as open as possible and we want it to be organic. We want people to use their own words, to write their own sentiment to decide when to give the recognition. It's not gamified, it's not a formula, but it's really supposed to come directly from the human and the connection you have with people at work. And so having software that where people can express appreciation to one another when they're working, that's going to become normal, that's going to become the standard.
- [23:24]
Samantha Murphy Kelly
Thanks for listening to the Next Innovation. This series was produced by Situation Room Studios and Powered by Enterprise Ireland. Investing in the next wave of innovation. Our executive producer is Christine Barata and our senior producer is Sharon Barrero. Emily Beeman is our associate producer. Additional production assistance by Global Situation Room Room. A special thanks to Dr. Hazel Grunewald, Jesse Harriot, Christian Cleveny and Dr. Jessica Kriegel. I'm your host, Samantha Murphy. Kelly. Until next time.