Lessons from the film ‘Office Space’: Misuse of Power may lead towards Deviant Employee Behavior

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employee deviance, HR, HRM, misuse of power, power, workplace issues

Capacity to give rewards, higher position, possession of such skills that are critical for business, control over monetary resources and access to information are common sources of power at work places.  At workplaces some are more powerful whereas others are less. Those who have power must use it in a careful manner for achieving organizational goals. If power is not used in a responsible manner it may prove to be disastrous.

Misuse of power stirs employees to resist. Resistance may be overt as well as covert. Work place deviance is a common form of resistance. Stealing, fraud, stop working or not working at full capacity, keeping rude behavior with others, not obeying official rules and violation of official timings are few examples of deviance. Statistics show that businesses suffer losses of forty billion dollars due to theft by employees; moreover, absence without reason causes losses of thirty billion dollars. Work place deviance causes losses of two hundred billion dollars to businesses every year.  

Now we will look into the film in order to understand deeply that how misuse of power leads towards deviance. The group V.P misuses his power in order to screw the employees he does not like. Peter, who is the lead character, comes late at work due to the fact that the V.P is stopping Peter’s promotion and calls him to work on weekends. Peter goes  against the organizational rules and dismantles his cubical. Moreover, he steals money from the company’s account. He along with Sameer and Michael Bolton, other characters, corrupts the computer system for stealing money. Above mentioned glimpses of the film are classic examples of the work place deviance that happens due to misuse of power.  

Power must be exercised in a responsible manner in the light of organizational rules and regulations. Responsible use of power may avoid many confrontations.  Holder of the power should try to influence behavior of others by having the authority of reward and punishment in his hand but must refrain from drawing unnecessary fire.  Many times it is assumed that power is bad but in reality situation is inverse it depends on the person who uses power that how he uses it. Basically to have power is not a bad thing, in an organization some people are supposed to have more power and authority over others so that they may make others work for the achievement of goals. 

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‘7377328’ is the Code for making your Employees Love your Business

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employee engagement, employee satisfaction, HR, HRM, human resource management

‘7377328’ is the code that can solve many of your workforce relating issues. If you enter this code correctly it reduces employee turnover, stops plummeting levels of job satisfaction, improves performance of human resources and make them loyal with your business. Let’s decipher the code. Please look at the numeric keys of your phone, 7=R, 3=E, 7=S, 7=P, 3=E, 2=C, 8=T. You have got it right; the word ‘RESPECT’ is hidden behind the code. If you start giving respect to your employees they will love you and your organization.

Respecting your employees means giving them respect in every regard. Respect their aims, carrier aspirations, work and feedback. Your employees have aims about their lives and work, learn about their aims in order to help them to fulfill their aims. Provide them necessary resources that are required for fulfilling their aims. Train them in order to equip them with those skills that are helpful in winning them their aims. Fulfillment of their aims will satisfy them. Furthermore, provide such carrier tracks to your employees that are helpful in fulfilling their carrier aspirations. Respect the work of your employees. If they are working well you must appreciate them. If they are not working as per your expectations you must guide and train them to do so. Ask your employees to provide you feedback about their work, working conditions and supervisors. Act upon their feedback, don not ignore it.

Giving respect to your employees mean you care for them. In return they will care your aims and goals. Their performance will boost. They will get loyal with your business and will do their best to benefit it. This way you will also attract the best talent along with retaining your present workforce.  

‘Talking Jobs’: Jobs that can talk with Doers

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gen-y, How to motivate millennials, HR, HRM, interactive jobs, job designs, millennials, new work place ideas

Can Jobs speak? I am positive about it; in my humble view a job can speak with its doer. ‘Talking Jobs’ are need of the hour. Reason is that millennials/Gen-Yers, who are replacing Gen-Xers at work places, want to experience and feel their work. Interactive designs are among one of their ideals. Thus, in order to make them involve into work and make them perform at their best such jobs are needed that talk to them. First we need to understand ‘talking jobs’. A ‘talking job’ is a job that interacts with its doer. It tells the person that s/he is doing it right or not. It suggests solutions to employees if they get stuck during the course of performing it. It provides continuous feedback. It informs employees that what skills they need in order to do it. It asks worker if s/he needs further resources in order to perform it.           

Now we are going to discuss the ideas that are helpful in making jobs talk to employees.

Continuous Feedback:

Continuous feedback means providing feedback to an employee for his every action that s/he does during the course of performing a task. If s/he is doing a right thing s/he must be informed with appreciation. If s/he is making any mistake s/he must be immediately informed about it along with the guidance to correct it. It is easier to do this in those companies that are small, where there are few and simple tasks. Feedback can be provided by directly by supervisors. Those organizations that are big, over there software based mechanisms should be placed for this purpose. Software provides feedback for every milestone that an employee meets during the course of performing a task. Tasks can be divided into many parts and time-bound milestones may be set. You must be wondering that I am talking about ‘talking jobs’ and I am suggesting that supervisors or software are the ones who may be used for the purpose of feedback. Let me elaborate it so that it makes sense to you. A job cannot talk or speak itself, things must be designed in such a way that give an impression to the one who works that the work is in contact with her/him. The concept of feedback is that it informs the doer that s/he is on the right track or not. It makes the doer feel that the two way communication is taking place between her/him and the work.

Time Bound Tasks:

Time bound tasks communicate with doers. As time progresses during the course of performing a task it tells the doer that how much time s/he is left with him. Actually this way communication happens between the doer and her/his job. Let me give you an example for explaining it, during the course of playing video game the timer tells that how much time has passed and what is left behind. The aim is to connect player with the game and to make him involve into it.

Announcement of Accomplishments:

When a work related accomplishment of an employee is being highlighted it brings her/him more close to her/his work. It helps to make the employee-job bond strong. S/He feels connected to her/his work due to the fact that it helps her/him to earn recognition.

Autonomy:

Job enrichment bestows control and authority to employee over her/his job. S/He becomes responsible in terms of job. S/He feels more close to his job along with having the sense of ownership. It makes the connection between both of them strong.  

Freedom to Fail:

Things that make us scare of exams are fear of doing unseen and fear of failure, due to these two reasons many of us hate exams. Due to these facts during the course of studies one thing that most of us want to avoid is appearing in exams. For this reason connection between us and exams is week. Most of people hardly feel that questions paper talks to them; they feel that it orders them to write correct answers. Imagine if exams allow us to make mistakes and give us chance to correct our mistakes by learning out of it, people will love exams. People love video games because they get freedom to fail while playing games. If players lose game they get further chances to start it again. Game teaches players how they must play it and how they should meet challenges. It is a unique example of communication. This communication is another reason that people love video games. The same model may be applied to jobs.

The above mentioned factors will help to design such jobs that talk with doers. ‘Talking Jobs’ will improve performance of employees. Connection between employees and their work will grow strong. Most of all ‘talking jobs’ will prove to be beneficial in the case of millennials/Gen-Yers. Issues of employee engagement and motivation may also be sorted this way.   

Voice of a Millennial/Gen-Yer: Work Related Practices that Work on Us

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gen-y, millennials, practices for gen-y, practices that work well on millennials, work practices for millennials

My line manager, at the previous company I was working for, did not like millennials/Gen-Yers. Once during the course of a discussion he made several accusations on Gen-Yers. Being a Gen-Yer it was hurting for me. When he finished speaking, I replied him “you do not really understand us”. He started his sermon once again as if I had rub salt into his wounds. I asked him what makes you think this way about us. He answered furiously that “it is difficult to manage you people”. After understanding his problem, I tried explaining him some things about millennials that certainly fell on deaf ears. Here in order to progress the post I am going to give a brief description of the things that I told to him about millennials. I told him we challenge things that do not make sense to us. We do not praise unnecessarily. We believe in progressing by performing well. We do not believe in short cuts but we do believe in the spirit of smart work. We like to be appreciated when it is due. We believe in making our own ways and defining our own rules. We anticipate before taking actions. We do not like to be confined in cubes because we have wings that latest technology has awarded us.

 

 

Being a Gen-Yer, whose present role includes: HR strategy development, advisory, guidance, business partnering, service providing and monitoring, I believe if right environment is provided to us we do our best in a smart manner to benefit organizations. I am going to discuss some of the strategies that work best in our case. Millennials need immediate and continuous appreciation. We believe if we do some-thing worthy we must be appreciated immediately and in order to keep us going we need continuous appreciation. The technology by which we are being surrounded allows us to stay in focus, thus along with personal appreciation from supervisors we prefer to be appreciated in front of everyone so that we can project our accomplishments among our connections on the web. We are not sycophants, thus do not expect us to wander uselessly around our supervisors and line managers. Do not judge us from our looks, views and faiths. We appreciate being judged due to our work only. We do not believe in the erstwhile concept of seniority on the basis of time spent in a particular field, we admire being promoted on the basis of our performance. Do not imprison us by putting the shackles of time and space; give us freedom by making our work connected with the mobile technology. Latest technology has enabled us to see our performance 24/7, make such arrangements that we can see our work related performance always and everywhere. Another reason behind this suggestion is that we give our best when our work interacts with us. Continues progress report is a way of making us feel that our work is an experience for us and we can see it. For making us learn do not use conventional methods of teaching. Make it interesting; make learning a real experience for us by involving us into it. We are well aware in every respect due to our continuous connectivity; thus, do not try to fool us by keeping us in dark.       

 

Many organizations around the world are working on the above stated schemes in order to make work a real experience for millennials, Google, Microsoft, DHL and Deloitte are just few examples of such organizations. Companies are using such ideas that involve mechanics of video games to engage employees and make them perform well employees. Work is becoming a real experience not something that is superficial. Things are already out of the box and further efforts are in progress to make workplaces in alignment with the ideals of millennials. 

Work Places for Millennials/Gen-Yers: Work Place Designs and Work Processes Ideas for Managers to Manage Millennials/Gen-Yers

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future workplaces, gen-y, millennials, work places for gen-y, workplaces for millennials

Millennials or Gen-Y are the people who were born between 1980 and the early 2000’s. Millennials who are in their thirties and twenties constitute a large number of today’s workforce. Due to their large numbers, that are continuously growing, organizations are focusing at designing and creating such workplaces and processes that are based on the ideas adhered by millennials. From workplace design to office hardware and from recruitment processes to performance management system businesses are trying to go for those schemes that are based on the ideals approved by them.

O2, the UK’s leading mobile network, uses a video game for hiring professionals at its stores. Nike has developed an application NIKE+ for the management of personal performance. NTT Data and Deloitte use video games to train their managers. DHL has developed a social platform for its employees who are spread worldwide; purpose is to increase interaction among workers in order to create collaboration and to find solutions of different problems. Google’s office is an interesting example in this regard, its interior is attractive. It has all of the facilities that employees need in their everyday lives. Employees can also customize their work stations.

Abovementioned things are testimony of the fact that workplaces are changing. These changes are necessary to make millennials work at their best. If you are an HR manager, Workplace strategist, Change manager or a leader of an organization who is responsible for bringing workplace changes in order to make it ready for the future then the following suggestions are certainly of your use.

Quick Feedback:

Millennials expect quick feedback from their peers and supervisors. Make such arrangements at your workplace that feedback for the work done is delivered as early as possible. Reason is that millennials are highly influenced by video games where feedback for every action is provided immediately. Moreover, they spend lots of time over social media where feedback for every post or share is immediate and huge.

Transparency (processes, communication, policies, reports, performance appraisals and rewards):

Millennials appreciate working in environments that are open and clear, openness in terms of communication that takes place within organizations, organizational policies, reports relating to performance of human resources, distribution of performance targets, rewards, remuneration and other ethical issues.

Allow Customization of Work-stations and Platforms:

Millennials prefer to have workplaces of their choice. One fact must be kept in mind that they get chances of customization every-where i.e. computers, social platforms, video games etc. Therefore, they prefer to have choices when it comes to their workplaces.

Employee Centric Approach:

Organizational process must be employee centric. Employees must be given importance and processes must be to make things easier for them.

Engaging Work Patterns and Processes:

Work patterns and organizational processes should be engaging. In order to make patterns and processes engaging businesses should make them interactive. For instance if an employee performs his routine job he should be able to see his progress and performance continuously. Feedback should be immediately provided to them. They should be given freedom to take decisions about their work in order to give them ownership of it.

Graphical Representations of Targets and Goals:

One thing is said frequently about millennials that they prefer to experience things. They get immersed into their work when they feel it. Thus, when it comes to goals and targets they should be provided graphic representations of them.

Social Platform:

Having a social platform for the employees of your organization is really a good idea.

Recognition:

Do such arrangements that offer immediate recognition and rewards to employees. Status updates, level up, badges, awards and certificates are used by different organizations in this regard.

Flexible Work Options:

Do not enforce work on your employees. Allow them to work at their ease but define framework and time limits in this regard.

Flexible Office Timings:

Forget the 9-5 rule, do something different to attract the best talent. To improve work life balance and to offer more flexibility offer such work timings that suits to your workforce. Millennials adore those arrangements that are flexible and can be customized.

Use Ideas of Gamification for Training and Employee Education:

Gamification comes forward as a viable solution to make training and learning sessions more effective, interesting and fruitful. Games have five elements which are helpful in improving learning. These elements are: competition, focus, immersion, continuous feedback and interactivity.

More and more organizations are trying to change designs of workplaces. A study has predicted that in the coming years companies will decrease their physical space by 17 percent due to advancements in the field of mobile technology. In terms of processes and structures organizations have undergone many changes. Now organizations are changing their structures from centralized to flat ones. At the place of vesting power into few hands businesses are disseminating the power of decision making into more hands. Organizations are making these changes, in terms of design and processes, to meet exigencies of time and to make workplaces in such a way that stir millennials to work at their best. 

Gamification: An Effective Tool for Dealing with the Problems Relating to Performance of Human Resources

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Gamification, Gamification in HR, performance management of human resources

Lack of motivation, dissatisfaction with performance appraisal, lack of engagement and minimum interest in learning and development activities are the results of an ineffective and inefficient performance management system. Due to these problems, the performance of human resources in particular and the organizational performance in general are affected. Therefore, there is a need to develop an effective and efficient system of performance management.

A new trend of using video game mechanics has emerged during last couple of years and has been applied in various fields successfully. This is known as gamification; it involves the use of game designs and game mechanics in order to perform various tasks and resolve problems. Rewards, status updates, levels, bonuses, points, countdown, discovery, progression and feedback are some examples of game mechanics. These mechanics are used for motivating, engaging and earning the loyalty. These mechanics can also be used to deal with the problems of performance. It is believed that if applied effectively gamification can be more effective and efficient than existing techniques of managing performance of human resources.  

 

Gamification: An effective tool to motivate people

Gamification is a useful tool for resolving issues of employee motivation. Many organizations are using those tools which are used in video games to motivate their employees to perform those tasks which they do not perform in normal circumstances. Game mechanics such as rewards, level ups, learning by doing and freedom to fail are great motivators. Moslow discussed five types of needs: physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualization. He claims that once a set of needs is met the next level of needs emerges. Moslow was of the view that people are motivated in order to fulfill their needs. Gamification is likely to help in satisfying different levels of needs; esteem needs for instance seem to be fulfilled with the help of game mechanics. When people play games they do most of the actions at their own. They make mistakes; correct their mistakes as a result of gaining knowledge from practice. All of these activities give them self-confidence and a sense of achievement. As players progress in games, they achieve new levels and become expert. It gives them the sense of worthiness and helps them to become independent. When they solve a problem or win a mission in a game

they are awarded with points, badges and goes levels up; these awards give them sense of achievement. The next tier of needs is self-actualization; in order to meet these need people want to explore their self and creativity. Strategic games give a good chance to players to prove their creativity and problem solving ability.

Continuous Feedback: A solution for resolving issues of performance evaluation

Continuous feedback is an interesting game mechanic. For every action of the players feedback is immediately provided. If players play smart moves in games they are awarded immediately. On the other hand if they make mistakes they will be informed at the same time, furthermore, they are given chances to correct their mistake. Feedback mechanism of games may be very beneficial for businesses, as it gives continuous output to the employees on where they are standing in terms of performance. Continuous feedback when compared with yearly performance evaluations is found to be much more effective in terms of improving employee performance, engagement, development and is even more transparent.

Gamification: An interesting way to train people and to improve the process of learning and development.

Although organizations arrange trainings for their employees in order to improve their skills, but it has been observed that training sessions do not prove to be as fruitful as anticipated. Feedback is not frequently provided to the learners and participants of trainings. Furthermore, things are just explained to the participants and they are not given a real chance to participate actively. Information and knowledge is transferred in a boring manner. Resultantly participants do not take interest in training; they just attend training as a formality.

Gamification comes forward as a viable solution to make training and learning sessions more effective, interesting and fruitful. Games have five elements which are helpful in improving learning. These elements are: competition, focus, immersion, continuous feedback and interactivity. In games, players compete with machines or with other human beings. They put efforts and skills to win the competition. Players interact with the contents of the game at first hand during the competition. They themselves play moves and take interest in everything which is happening in the result of their actions. During the competition, continuous feedback is provided to players, so that they can personally see where they are at the moment in terms of progress and what they have got in their hands. In general, games make the process of learning more fun and offer players to have firsthand experience by making them participate.

Gamification: A solution for the problems of engagement.

Games have numbers of mechanics which constantly keep the users engage. These mechanics are used for engaging people in order to complete specific tasks and to perform such activities which they would not complete in normal circumstances. AIR MILES, an international rewards program, introduced a challenge called Check-in Challenge. This challenge is contested through a mobile phone application. It offers points every time someone checks in at the specified places. At the end of the month those who have more points are awarded. In AIR MILES’s check-in challenge users are engaged by rewards. This example of „Check-in Challenge‟ shows that by adding a layer of gaming to a service an ordinary challenge becomes more engaging and fun. If game elements are used skillfully, engagement may be increased to unprecedented levels. Reason is that game mechanics fulfill human desires, such as rewards, status, achievement, self-expression, competition and altruism.

There are clear links between performance of human resources and organizational performance. Organizational profitability increases with the better management of human resources. Since organizational performance is dependent upon the performance of human resources, it puts focus on the need of improving performance of human resources, moreover, it highlights the importance of having an effective and efficient system of performance management for human resources that deals with the issues such as lack of motivation, dissatisfaction with performance appraisal, lack of engagement and minimum interest in learning and development activities  Performance management by gamification is an effort to develop such a system which is based on high performance practices. It will deal the problems which cause low performance of employees. Therefore, it will contribute towards superior overall organizational performance.

Best Practices for Creating the Culture of Trust in Your Organization

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best practices for creating the culture of trust, culture of trust, culture of trust in organizations, how to create the culture of trust

Culture plays the role of cement in binding the members of a group together. If cement is not good it malfunctions and affects the bond that exists between the members of a group. In case if the element of trust misses from culture then mistrust creeps in. Mistrust weakens the relationship among the members of a group. Furthermore, it becomes difficult to achieve a common goal in the presence of mistrust. Now look at mistrust in the context of an organization. It weakens relationship among the members of an organization. Employees feel vulnerable as they are always suspected. Workers do not give their best that affects production, services and sales. Organizational profits decrease. Issues of workforce engagement arise and employee turnover increases. Chances of cheating and deceit within organization increase. Different studies have revealed that almost 60-65 percent employees of companies do not trust their leaders. Reason is absence of the culture of trust within organizations. Obscure agendas, concealing organizational aims & goals, dishonest and unbiased leadership, tax evasions, employee benefit cuts, lack of readiness at the part of organizational leadership to hear employee feedback, unclear performance goals and hidden employee performance measuring scales are some of the major reasons for the culture of mistrust in organizations.

After facing the consequences of the culture of mistrust now organizations are realizing the importance of trust. Therefore, all around the world companies are trying to make cultural changes in this regard. But cultural change is not as easy as it sounds. It takes time, commitment and efforts to replace the culture of mistrust with the culture of trust. The following practices are helpful in building the environment of trust:

• Study the actual reasons of mistrust and learn about the damages it is causing.                                  
• Always have clear aims & goals in front of you that what do you want to achieve by having the culture of trust in your organization.
• Create a clear program in this regard. Have workers on board during the course of crafting it.  
• Set performance measures to gauge the performance of the program. Satisfied workforce, low employee turnover and increased profitability can be some of the performance measures in this respect.   
• Leadership must take the first step in this regard by being as role model. Cultural change travels fast from top to bottom.
• Leaders should reduce the say-do gaps.
• Fulfill promises that are being made with the workforce.
• Make your workforce understand the importance of trust. Offer training and courses in this regard.  
• Not just in their professional lives leaders must try to be honest in their personal matters as well.
• Bring in transparency in terms of organizational process, decision making, goals’ communication and financial matters.
• Do not over estimate your employees always assign those goals to them that they can achieve.
• In case of failure be polite and generous.  
• Always separate dirty fish from the rest in order to avoid setbacks.
• Remember in many cases mistrust spreads due to unclear and biased programs of performance management in organizations. Create a clear and fair system in this regard and award rewards on the basis of performance.  
• Tell inspiring stories to your workforce in regard of trust.

If an organization is making cultural changes in terms of trust it does not mean that its leaders close their eyes and start trusting everything they hear, they must always keep their eyes open to avoid any setbacks. Keep it in mind that it takes time to clear the poison of mistrust from the environment of an organization, thus be patience. Environment of trust takes time to grow. Leadership of an organization plays the most important role in it.

Best Practices of Employees’ Interaction

Benefits of employees’ interaction are not hidden from anyone; this area has gained tremendous popularity during the recent years. Organizations are paying attention to employees’ interaction by developing plans in this regard. Employee’s interaction includes: employees’ interaction with organizations, employees’ interaction with the outside world and employees’ relations within an organizations. In this post I am going to discuss best practices of employees’ relations with each other within an organization. One of the reasons of disagreements among employees is lack of interaction among them. It causes friction among them and disturbs the overall organizational environment. Such issues can be sorted with the help of employees’ interaction plans. Furthermore, issues of employee satisfaction, engagement and development can also be sorted by implementing plans of employees’ interaction.   

Before writing down the best practices of employees’ interaction I am going to give an advice to professionals about using best practices. Best practices of any field make it easier for the professionals of that field to perform functions. Best practices provide such a path that leads towards success. But in an effort to follow the best practices one fact should not be ignored that every organization has its own unique culture and circumstances that may differ from the one in which the best practices are being framed. Therefore, leaders, managers, advisors, supervisors and workers must not blindly follow the path of best practices of any discipline. They must first analyze the situation in which they are operating. After analyzing the situation they should decide which best practice may be applied in its true spirit and which needs alteration in accordance with the situation. Always try to find a middle way.   

 

• Develop a plan for employee interaction; it must be employee-centric.
• Give official status to employee interaction plan.
• Create conducive environment for its success.
• Leadership must inspire the rest; they must live by the values of the plan.
• Announce it loudly and repeatedly that employee connection is at place.
• Vertical organizational structure may prove to be a hurdle in the way of employee connection plan, thus make such arrangements which make organizational structure a horizontal one.
• In order to familiarize employees with the plan organize training.
• Involvement of employees is very important in this regard. Develop such programs that ensures employee participation i.e. employee connection champion program etc.
• Feedback mechanism must be at place to have an overall idea about the plan. Develop employee-driven improvement processes.
• Establishment of cross role and cross functional connections must be included among employee performance goals. 

 

Power of Employee Interaction

Tags

employee interaction, employee motivation, employee retention, employee turnover, importance of employee interaction

Problems such as: low productivity, high employee turnover and dissatisfied workforce has given rise to the subject of employee interaction. Employee interaction plans are meant for increasing interaction among employees of different roles and different functions. Benefits of employee interaction are as following:

•           Employee satisfaction increases.

•           Employee turnover decreases, good talent gets attracted.

•           Collaborative environment nourishes.

•           Status differences within the organization reduce.

•           Performance of human resources improves.

•           Helps to avoid mutual disagreements.

There are different tools that organizations can use to improve employee interaction.

•           At first a formal plan for employee interaction should be developed.

•           Once the plan is developed it must be enforced and followed by the top management.

•           Open meetings are quite effective in this regard.

•           Employee consoling helps to increase interaction.

•           Surveys are also useful tools for developing connections.

•           Occasional get together and annual dinners.   

“Gamification” can Help to Solve the Issues of Employee Retention, Motivation, Performance and Development

Tags

Gamification, use of gamification in HR, video game mechanics, what is gamification

The global market of video games in 2012 was $67 billion and it is expected to reach $80 billion in the year 2017. The Entertainment software association published in its 2011 report that 72 percent of the American households play computer or video games. These staggering figures show that the market of computer and video games is big and that it is continuously growing. As games are becoming more and more popular, various industries are focusing on developing video games for performing different functions in their organizational systems and are getting inspired by the concepts used in video games. O2 is one of the UK’s leading mobile networks; it uses a video game for the recruitment of technical support staff. The use of games in marketing is becoming quite frequent. A new breed of video games allows players to physically participate by using their hand motions and body movements. This became inspiration for software developers, who came up with some programs in which users are able to control movements with their hands instead of using a mouse or keyboard. The application of games and game concepts in other fields of study has given rise to the term “gamification”. “Gamification” became popular in the year 2010 and since then has developed to a widely used and applied term. There are some definitions of „gamification‟:

 

 “The application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity”.

 “Gamification is the use of game design elements in non-game contexts”. 

“Gamification is using game-based mechanics, aesthetics, and game thinking to engage people, motivate action, promote learning, and solve problems”.

The above mentioned definitions make it clear that “gamification” is about applying game mechanics and designs into other fields of study. It is an interesting way of doing serious real life things. Game mechanics may be applied to almost any industry for various purposes. “Game mechanics are ruled based systems / simulations that facilitate and encourage a user to explore and learn the properties of their possibility space through the use of feedback mechanisms”. Rewards, status updates, levels, bonuses, points, countdown, discovery, progression and immediate feedback are some examples of game mechanics. Game mechanics are used in games to engage, motivate, educate and entertain players. Furthermore, mechanics are used to earn loyalty of players in the favor of a specific brand. Players can also be motivated or influenced to do specific things with the help of specific mechanics. If game mechanics, designs and aesthetics can motivate people to play games it can also be applied to real life to drive the same results which are driven in games.