All work has its quorum of humdrum. You may be a rock star and playing that solo in spotlight may give you an unparalleled high; but this only comes with the tedium of running through scale exercises for hours. If you are a salesperson, closing that hard deal may be rewarding; making sales notes for each call is not. Winning customer love feels awesome for any support agent, but closing an unending trail of inactive tickets, not quite so!
Gamescope is a layer we’re adding across our products to help you turn such tedious work into an exciting game.
How it works
Points are awarded for making progress with work such as completing tasks, closing tickets and deals, and resolving bugs. This is tracked in a scorecard. Each game happens within a time frame; think of it as a basketball game. The ones who score the maximum points when the game ends win trophies. Apart from these, you also collect badges by achieving specific targets. For example, anyone who finishes five tasks an hour could collect a ‘Taskmaster Badge.’ And the winners get to show off their badges and trophies in the scorecard or in their individual profile pages.
Keep the boss out of the game
If such games can only be initiated and run by bosses, they turn into a means of supervision. The fear that a defeat may get noticed by a superior is just the thing that could stop your team from wanting to be part of them. Whereas, the goal of Gamescope is to build a culture of camaraderie and peer respect. So we let anyone start the games and also pick who gets to watch them play. The bosses needn’t even get wind of any action, if that’s what the players want. The intern who joined you last week could challenge the guy next to him on who finishes more tasks by EOD. She could spice things up with a wager that the winner orders pizza for the loser.
Track scores in real time
As you make progress with work, the scores are updated live. Say, by earning some points, a player overtakes another to reach the top position. The one who is now second immediately comes to know of this and she pushes hard to regain the lead. This results in a neck to neck race for the trophy creating an atmosphere of intense excitement around the work involved.
Set the stage for action
You can configure the games to ensure every contest is keenly fought. Specify how many points are earned or lost for each action, create custom trophies and badges, and add detailed criteria for awarding points.
Eliminate rigor from your entire business
Zoho’s suite of apps covers all aspects of running a business including, H.R., productivity and collaboration, sales and marketing, and help desk. This puts us in a position to eliminate the rigor wherever it can occur.
Launching now in Zoho Projects
As a first step, we’re now announcing Gamescope for Zoho Projects. You can start games and score points with activities such as creating tasks, marking them complete, and adding and closing bugs. Click here to know how to get started.
Gamescope is coming soon to more products, stay tuned to know which is next!
A game can turn a dull day into a lively one making everyone give their best. And no matter how they end, your business emerges a winner. So kick out drudgery from your workplace; kick off Gamescope today!
Written by Hari Nayanarian