Is gamification right for your company? Are your sales reps excited to come to work each day?

Or do they dread each call, pensively check their monitor clocks, mentally computing how much time there is left before they can leave the floor?

According to the 2014 Global Workforce Study conducted by Towers Watson, four out of 10 employees are disengaged. Some of the reasons they are unmotivated are pay, industry, management and company culture. It is in every company’s interest to have motivated employees. In sales situations that can be high-pressure in nature, ensuring that sales reps are locked in and engaged is one of the sales manager’s most necessary tasks.

So, what motivates employees?

Recognition, remuneration, and a competitive sense are all excellent motivators. Gamification works well with workplaces. It banks on each of these motivators to keep employees locked in and focused. Gamification is the marriage of productivity and technology where game mechanics are used in a non-gaming context.

Traditionally, games and work do not mix. However, engagement is such a big issue for many companies that managers and top-level management are willing to try anything to get their workforce performance in top speed. If businesses do not do anything with disengaged workers, the business will suffer. For many teams, gamification might be the key.

Why it works: The psychology behind gamification

Gabe Zichermann said in his book Gamification by Design, “gamification is 75% psychology and 25% technology.” What gamification does is it taps on the psychological cues that push our day-to-day decisions. A gamification tool is a platform for competition, achievements, and progress management. Gamification is fun–but it has one objective. As a manager or C-level executive, you are willing to try gamification to get the results you want: encourage productivity and engagement of your employees.

The biggest hurdle to this is also one thing: Behavior is not an easy to change. To change behavior, there are three elements that must converge, according to Professor B.J. Fogg. The experimental psychologist at Stanford University says that motivation, ability and trigger are the three things that have to happen at the same time for behavior to change. Can gamification impact your employees’ behavior?

Why does sales gamification work?

Gamification only works when it motivates your employees to do something. While it can be successful in curbing bad habits and promoting better behavior, it’s important to have a basic understanding of where the motivation comes from. Done badly, gamification can have the opposite effect on your employees than intended.