A rebellion brewed among the German employees of the software giant SAP. Angry chat messages flew back and forth on the company's messenger system, petitions were started and gathered thousands of signatures in a few days. Staff spoke of feeling betrayed.

What happened? The management of SAP had ordered their staff back to the office.

After spending the best part of the pandemic behind their screens in nearly endless Zoom and Teams meetings, office workers worldwide are asked to return to their desks and cubicles. And they are unhappy about it.

The return to the office is a contentious topic, likely to cause rifts within teams and companies. Luckily, it's possible to adapt to a hybrid workplace, build strong teams online, and maintain productivity and team culture. How? You guessed it: Gamification! Let us show you how you can use gamification to make your hybrid teams successful.

More than half of Australians said they'd consider quitting if forced to return to the office full-time. Yet, despite complaints and anger, CEOs and managers seem bent on bringing their teams back to their desks. Last year, even Zoom asked employees back to the office. A sign that fully remote work seems to be on the way out.

Why do managers push for a return to the office? The simple answer: Trust and culture. More traditional managerial styles advocate face-to-face meetings to monitor productivity and create meaningful connections and team cohesion.

Forcing employees back to the office for tedious “How was your weekend?”-chats in the coffee kitchen, meetings that could have been an email, and long commutes is a mistake. Studies have shown that office work does not increase productivity. Companies who expect their staff to be in an office full-time will be disadvantaged when hiring. Without remote options, you won't be able to attract the best talent. Remote work also allows people with disabilities and caregivers to access work that might otherwise be out of reach, creating more accessible and diverse workplaces.

If companies want to stay competitive, they must offer at least a meaningful hybrid model of work, where employees split their time between the office and remote locations. As more and more organisations transition to hybrid work, maintaining a sense of belonging and connection becomes crucial. The good news? It is possible to create strong teams and maintain productivity when working online.

Hybrid Work Is Here to Stay

It is unlikely that in the future, your team will work entirely remotely or just in the office. Nine out of ten American companies already work with a hybrid model. Likewise, staff prefers a hybrid work environment, with almost 50% of recent graduates saying they want to work remotely part-time.

This shift towards hybrid work is driven by various factors, including improved employee satisfaction, competitiveness when attracting and keeping talent, and decreasing operational costs, for example, by paying for smaller offices.

Employees and employers both benefit from hybrid work. Hybrid work offers better work-life balance, reduced commuting costs and time, increased flexibility in scheduling, and more time for personal activities. Studies indicate that employees are more likely to feel happy and productive in roles that offer hybrid work options.

However, the transition to a hybrid work model has its pitfalls. Companies who want to make a success of it need to do more than provide laptops and Zoom licences to their staff. Managers and teams need to be trained to navigate hybrid work dynamics and invest time into building new ways of communicating and working together.

This shift towards hybrid work is not just a temporary response to the pandemic but a long-term transformation shaping how organisations operate and employees engage with their work environments. When the pandemic hit, many workplaces had to adapt quickly and implement remote work without a long-term strategy in mind.

Now, with the normalisation of hybrid work, it's time to reflect on how to implement hybrid work strategies that support workplace culture and productivity while addressing the challenges associated with remote teams.

How Can Gamification Help You Build Strong Teams?

Gamification is the perfect tool to increase employee motivation and team spirit, and it can also help you create a productive hybrid work environment. Take a look at our favourite strategies that will help you foster social cohesion and increase productivity in a hybrid workplace by tapping into the power of gamification.

Collaboration Made Easy

Working from home can get lonely. Sure, it's cosy to work in your sweatpants on the couch instead of donning a pair of jeans to sit in a cubicle, but in most cases, working from home does not provide the same level of socialising as being in an office does. Feeling disconnected from your team can decrease motivation and productivity.

In other words, you need to provide a social element to ensure that your employees feel connected and remain resilient. Sure, you can implement weekly Zoom coffee chats, but if you were ever forced to attend one, you know they can become awkward spaces where people stare at the screen, at a loss for what to say.

Let your employees play when they work remotely! A collaborative game tied to a tangible outcome is a great way to engage your staff, let them work together, and maybe sneak in a much-needed training or refresher lesson. This way, they can stay connected even if they haven't seen each other face-to-face for a while.

Find ways to transform shared tasks or lessons into an online game - by using our handy products, for example - and watch your employees form teams and learn from and with each other. Make sure that you use intention when designing a gamified work environment. When in doubt about how to do this, check out our blog on how to make corporate training work.

Onboard A New Team Member With Ease

In a hybrid workplace, a new employee might show up in person for their first day. However, most likely, they will spend a significant amount of time working from home in the coming weeks. Effective onboarding is a structured process that should last at least one year, as it plays a vital role in ensuring high employee engagement and retention.

Gamification can help you onboard new employees, making their transition into their new roles meaningful.

Some benefits of using gamification in onboarding processes are:

1. Enhanced Engagement: Using simple gamification elements such as points or badges can make the onboarding experience more interactive and fun, increasing the chances that employees rapidly complete the onboarding and are quickly prepared for the job.
2. Accelerated Learning: By turning learning into a friendly competition and incorporating gaming elements, information retention improves, speeding up the journey for new employees to become proficient in their roles.
3. Social Connection: Including social elements, such as shared tasks between new and established employees, comprehensive FAQs, or messaging functions, can make new hires feel connected to their team and foster a spirit of collaboration.

Follow these strategies to gamify your onboarding:

Set Clear Objectives: Define clear objectives for gamified onboarding to track progress effectively and ensure alignment with organisational goals.

Understand Your Staff: Before adding gamification elements, understand the new hires' goals, preferences, and motivations to tailor the experience effectively. Consider doing a little questionnaire or interview before starting the onboarding process to discover what they already know and where blindspots might lie. Think about your staff in terms of players to adapt the gamification elements to their needs and design a learning and working environment that fosters productivity. We recommend learning about Bartle's four types of gamers to get started.

Don't Rely on Gamification Alone: The advantage of a hybrid workplace is that you get the best of both worlds. Use your employees' time online to engage and motivate them with gamification design, but don't forget the importance of a friendly in-person chat in building teams and trust.

Gamification Allows You To Monitor Progress

Nobody loves a boss who constantly looks over their shoulder to ask, “Have you finished the task yet?”. Gamification can help monitor your employees' progress easily without burdening them with additional stress and reporting responsibilities.

Implement systems where employees earn points or badges for completing tasks. Points can be exchanged for rewards or recognition, fostering a sense of accomplishment and motivation. Badges can be a fun way to promote friendly competition between remote staff. If your online system has a reporting backend, you can easily keep track of tasks and processes even if your team works remotely.

A word of caution: We don't advocate for micromanaging or tracking too many metrics. Make sure you give your employees the freedom to do their work without feeling constantly watched, and use tracking responsibly.

The Future of Hybrid Work Lies in Gamification

Hybrid work is here to stay. Employers adopting a hybrid work model must embrace flexibility, innovation, and employee well-being to ensure a smooth transition.

Balancing the physical and digital worlds in a hybrid work environment is crucial in keeping your team engaged and getting the work done. Gamification can help navigate this by focusing on intrinsic rewards and motivators rather than solely on completing tasks. By tapping into our innate desire to play and a friendly spirit of competition, you can ensure your employees are engaged and complete their work.

Never forget to include socialising moments to foster a sense of belonging among team members. Humans are social creatures, and that doesn't change even if they spend their days in front of a screen.

One final tip: Make sure you decide on the right gamification environment for your team. Nothing is more annoying than having to work with a program that is clunky, or that increases the workload. Decide on a gamification system that allows you to easily create social opportunities, track performance, and improve motivation and performance. If you're not sure where to start, talk to us!

By leveraging gamification strategies effectively, you can create more engaging, collaborative, and productive workplaces that cater to the diverse needs of your staff - no matter where they are.

Level Up has always been an online-first company. Our staff works remotely (sometimes even on different continents), so we had to learn how to make remote work successful and create team culture simultaneously. Our trials and errors are your advantage. We know how to build strong teams through gamification, and all our knowledge is directly reflected in our products. Take a look at them and see how gamification can also become your secret to success.