The thrill of games, achievements and collectibles is entering the workplace at Driggs Title Agency with the launch of Kindness Kwest.
Kindness Kwest brings gamification, the concept of points or rewards through the completion of tasks, to employees to get them learning and building better relationships.
Over the years, gamification has been increasingly adopted in mobile applications to drive engagement in the app or in your life.
The popular app Snapchat has gamification features instilled in it through snapstreaks earned after frequently sending messages to friends, and points are earned through the amount of interactions users have on the app.
Nike has even engaged in gamification with its NikeFuel app, which tracks your activities and gives users achievements when records are created.
Mobile apps like Habitica, which works to gamify your life, allows users to turn their to-do list into a role-playing adventure.
Driggs Title Agency launched Kindness Kwest on Jan. 18. Kindness Kwest brings three types of quests into the workplace to help motivate employees towards a variety of goals.
“I wanted to create an app that would inspire our employees to come together and I thought using gamification was a great tool to motivate our teams to work towards their goals.” explains Adam Driggs, CEO and founder of Driggs Title Agency.
The app is designed to bring all 23 Driggs locations together as a community. Each location is represented by a neighborhood, with each department as a cul-de-sac, and each employee as a house.
By completing tasks, employees receive points and currency. These can buy virtual items to decorate and personalize employees’ in-game homes, or real-life VIP privileges, like receiving more commission points for a given month. Furthermore, employees are kept accountable—if they neglect their tasks, their grass will die or their paint crack.
The three types of quests where employees can earn points within Kindness Kwest are:
- Knowledge quests motivates employees to learn about their company. For instance, Driggs writes its own software, so a Knowledge task might be learning a shortcut to increase efficiency.
- Client quests encourages employees to build better business relationships, perhaps calling a regular customer who hasn’t ordered for a few months.
- Kindness quests inspires employees to connect with each other by doing something silly, like hi-fiving everyone in the office.
Employees at all locations are connected and able to visit each other’s homes. Incentives are varied, from a leaderboard encouraging competition, to landscaping and decorating options inspiring creativity.
The app also focuses on giving back to the community, because when an employee completes enough tasks, Driggs will donate to a local charity. Right now, the app is centered around Fresh Start, a local nonprofit that helps women, and the app reflects this.
Each house has a closet, and as an employee completes tasks, clothing appears. When someone fills their closet, Driggs will donate something that Fresh Start needs, like bus passes.
Eventually, the goal is for employees to choose their own charities.
For example, if someone wants to fight illiteracy, each time they complete a task a book may appear in their library, and when the library is full the company can donate to a charity working for that cause.
