What are group dynamics?
Group dynamics can be defined as structured participatory activities that make groups work together in order to achieve a specific goal. In these group dynamics, practical and even playful activities are used to improve people’s motivation, enhance their skills, or increase their knowledge by encouraging positive actions.
In the professional environment, these dynamics are employed for many different purposes: keeping teams’ motivation high when facing repetitive or routine tasks; improving self-confidence and sense of belonging to the team; enhancing communication and leadership skills; or improving productivity.
Why should companies use group dynamics based on games?
This way, companies can turn learning process or high productivity periods into positive, playful and motivational experiences, which add an emotional value to the training process or daily work. Besides, game dynamics can help to resolve personal disputes and improve teams’ cohesion because problems are turned into opportunities for improvement.
Companies can help teams to achieve their best version by encouraging team work in a playful and innovative way. Not only employee motivation and well-being are improved at work, but also company’s results are increased in the medium and long term.
If you want to know more about motivation strategies and how to improve teams’ motivation, do not hesitate to read “How does gamification affect motivation?”
Game dynamics
Teams will participate actively in the dynamics only if participants find it worthwhile to play. So this is the reason why these dynamics have to meet three basic requirements:
- Arouse players’ interest by paying attention to their personal preferences and offering attractive rewards or prizes.
- Have a clear goal and make game dynamics simple and easy to understand in order to avoid misunderstandings or misinterpretations.
- Define results in a fair, objective and undeniable way. Engagement and motivation will only be improved if a safe gaming environment is provided.
Adapting to the specific needs and interests of players is essential to guarantee the success of the game dynamics. So the specific player profile is a key element when choosing the right dynamics. Below you will find three game dynamics examples in accordance to three different player profiles.
1st game: “Roll the dice”
Objective: Keeping motivation high when employees face tedious or repetitive tasks.
Player profile: Participants must work in the same place but they have to carry out individual tasks. A good example of this would be a telemarketing office.
Equipment: A giant dice as big as a fitness gym ball, whose four sides include attractive rewards to the players (for example, finishing work 30 minutes before, a dinner for two in a restaurant, movie or concert tickets). The other two sides include the following options: “roll the dice again” and “choose a prize for another player”.
Game dynamics: When an employee makes a sell, he or she rolls the dice (which is placed where everybody can see it) in order to get a reward. This game can be played once per day (one hour), once per week, or once per month (whole day).
Benefits: It adds excitement to repetitive tasks, offers public acknowledgement, and rewards well-done job and team spirit.
2nd game: “Main character”
Objective: Improving confidence and creating emotional ties among team members while enhancing sales skills (empathy, intuition, communication, and storytelling).
Player profile: This game is suitable for teams who have to work together in order to achieve a common goal, like brand representative teams and sellers who engage with clients face-to-face.
Equipment: A box where all players leave a piece of paper with an interesting or funny short story about themselves. Players do not write their names and no one can know the story beforehand. This game requires the presence of a moderator, who underlines some words of each story.
Game dynamics: A player takes a piece of paper, reads the story, and tries to explain it to the other participants without saying the underlined forbidden words. The first player who guesses the name of the author of the story (the main character) receives two points. Narrators also receive one point if they do not use the forbidden words. The player who gets the highest score at the end of the round is the winner.
Benefits: This game creates a safe and playful space which improves personal knowledge of team members, and it helps to build shared memories. It also improves inventiveness in storytelling and the ability of catching people’s attention.
3rd game: “Sell-it-all”
Objective: Activating players’ sales skills and techniques in a funny way.
Player profile: Employees who work in direct sales and deal with clients.
Equipment: A rotating wheel with 14 sections which include pictures of ordinary objects. Moreover, each player will be given a rating sheet with four criteria: inventiveness, reasoning, persuasion, and attractiveness.
Game dynamics: Each player has to spin the wheel once in order to get an object. Then, each player has three minutes to “sell” the product to the other players. When the time finishes, players have to rate the performance from 1 to 10 according to the parameters described before. The player who gets the highest score wins the game.
Benefits: Improving communication and sales skills no matter what products they are selling. Discovering their own abilities, receiving feedback, and strengthen team bonds.
Playmotiv game dynamics
Thanks to new technologies, traditional game dynamics become renewed and motivating digital experiences. Playmotiv uses this technology to create virtual game dynamics, which turn daily work into exciting adventures. Thanks to our gamifications, game dynamics benefits are applied to employee daily work. What is the result? Motivated employees who feel valued and whose efforts are appreciated by their team and their company.
What is our secret? Through an App, we create an adapted game environment to our clients’ needs and their teams, where players’ actual work result in points and rankings, all this integrated into storytelling. This way, employees take part in a collective game while they carry out their daily job. In a simple and accessible way, from anywhere through a smartphone, individual work becomes public and playful, so healthy competition is boosted. Besides, players obtain points with this virtual experience, and these points can be exchanged for tangible rewards. This way, daily work becomes a space for competition, motivation and satisfaction, so productivity is improved and sales increase up to 20%.
It is amazing, right? Now we will offer you two examples of how we achieve it:
4th game: “Intrepid Travellers’ Race”
Story: Intrepid Travellers’ Race is an adventure race through the most impressive landscapes of the world. Players compete for being the first to accomplish different missions in each stage. This adventure takes players to deserts, deep oceans, jungles or volcanos, among other landscapes.
Actual game objective: Increasing sales an improving the established KPIs by each company.
Game dynamics: Actual daily work of employees generates points and these points generate the public rankings. At the same time, these points are exchanged for Amazon codes, so players receive actual rewards.
Equipment: A smartphone with Playmotiv’s free app. The App will guide players through the game thanks to push messages, videos, and other audio-visual resources. Besides, players can check the general rankings in order to be aware of their own position. They can also see the proposed challenges and manage their rewards.
Player profile: Since the game is a race, an adventure, and a trip at the same time, it can reach a wide range of profiles.
Benefits: Direct feedback about daily work, work becomes playful and social, and public, objective and fair acknowledgement. All this improves motivation, and therefore, sales and results.
5th game: “The Ultimate Ascent to Everest”
Story: The Ultimate Ascent to Everest is an expedition to the top of the world: a self-improvement story in the most impressive summit of the world. In this adventure, players will defy nature and their own limits by climbing the highest mountain in the world.
Actual game objective: It can be adapted to the specific KPIs and objectives of any company.
Game dynamics: Actual daily work of employees generates points and these points generate the public rankings.
Equipment: Playmotiv’s app.
Player profile: The storytelling easily reaches employees who are interested in sports and outdoor activities.
Benefits: Improving team motivation and engagement with the company.
Do you want to know what our clients have achieved thanks to our gamifications? Check our case studies.
