GAMIFICATION ON EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT OF THE EXECUTIVES: EVIDENCE FROM AN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FIRM IN SRI LANKA

Abstract

In the current society, most of the people spend the majority of their time in organizations. Therefore, the engagement or the involvement of them towards the organization has been identified as a key factor, which has a great impact on organizational productivity into a large extent. Well-implemented employee engagement practices are vital for an organization when considering the fact, that employee is the most important asset of an organization. Gamification is an emerging phenomenon that has been advocated for its potential to improve organizational outcome. The focus is to understand how the employee engagement can be influenced and increased by the use of Gamification. Employees from companies that use Gamification were found to have significantly higher overall engagement levels, intellectual and affective engagement levels, and social engagement levels, as well as increased organizational citizenship behavior levels and reduced intent to turnover. This study explores the impact of Gamification in employee engagement at VWX Corporation and the relationship between each attribute of Gamification considered by the researcher and employee engagement. The research demonstrates on attributes of employee engagement and an evaluation of those attributes in the light of conceptual framework developed from the current theoretical arguments, empirical findings and expert opinions. The conceptual framework focuses on two main variables and three attributes. Gamification stands as the independent variable where the employee engagement refers to the dependent variable. A randomly selected sample of one hundred and twenty-one employees presented their responses to the questionnaire. Data analyses were carried out using correlation and regression analysis. More concern is given to improve employee engagement through gamified processes. It was further based on the findings; a guideline will be developed within the scope of Human Resources Management to restructure the employee engagement practices to be implemented in Sri Lankan organizations, which will enhance the employee engagement.