How Game Mechanics Improved Performance and Engagement at Kobo

An article in today’s Globe and Mail, “Putting the Fun in Cubicle Culture”, describes how Rypple infused game mechanics into its social performance platform to increase employee engagement among its customers.

Jennifer Ricci, Vice President of Employee Experience at leading e-book vendor Kobo, spoke to Canada’s National Newspaper about how Rypple fits into their culture.“It’s important that we be able to reward a team after each big win, because twice a year isn’t enough.”

She describes how Kobo uses Rypple’s Thanks application to connect recognition to the values of their company. For example, Kobo employees receive a headhunter badge recognizing people who identify potential recruits — an enormous benefit for the company in Toronto’s competitive tech market. This information then gets stored on public profiles for coworkers to compare, which the Globe calls, “a far cry from the dry, didactic language found on performance reviews of old.”

The Globe’s Matthew Braga writes, “with a service such as Rypple, successful results can be recognized almost immediately, with rewards, status and reputation offering an incentive to further improve an employee’s performance and engage with the company.”

Braga also correctly emphasizes that the goal at Rypple isn’t to turn everything into a game. Rather, it is “to make certain activities – namely, feedback and engagement – more meaningful.”

Indeed, as our co-CEO Dan Debow told the Globe, we can all learn a lot from games about how to get someone to spend time doing something they don’t have to do.

“No one is forced to play a game. And yet, people invest enormous amounts of their time, energy and passion… You can force an employee to do stuff, but they’re not necessarily going to be happy and engaged.”

To learn more about improving employee engagement with Rypple , check out the story in full.