Ritu Raj

I’m the co-founder of Rypple. We build social software that helps teams work better together.  A key element of Rypple is a bottom-up service for creating and awarding badges, based on peer-recognition and goal achievement.  So for us, this question isn’t “what if” but “what has happened” when we add badges to the mix at work.  To be clear, we don’t “replace” titles with badges; we just supplement (as suggested by Ben and others).  

We’ve implemented Rypple badges at a number of great companies like Gilt Group, Mozilla, and Great Harvest.  We’re learning a lot about what works, what doesn’t and how to design the right system.  

Here’s what’s we learnt: good things happen… More recognition, better insights into what people actually do, easier reviews, and pride of achievement & reputation. But it requires careful system design based on game design.

Discovery #1: Badges can amplify positive behaviors like recognizing each other and collaborating on goals (aka…epic missions).

People like thanking others for meaningful help & achievements. This can be tremendously motivating. We made it crazy simple for people to give each other thanks badges, and to see these badges on their profiles.  This increased how often people recognized each others’ achievements. Even companies that had a a “thanks” system saw activity levels double when we replaced it with our thanks badges.

People like embarking on “epic missions” with others - just like in games. We made it easy for people do this using social goals. They then collect badges representing their wins. We found that people quickly started creating their own (very creative) social goals instead of waiting for a top-down assignment of goals. And these self-created social goals often had greater activity and completion rates around them than top-down goals. Why? Ownership over these goals! We also found that people like to see the missions (or goals) they’ve completed augment their work reputation.  So we made it easy to see these goal achievement badges on people’s profiles.

Discovery #2: A badge system designed around intrinsic motivators doesn’t become silly.
“Game elements are like an amplifier: There has to be a genuine sound first - a value, an interest, a motivation - for the amplifier to do any good” (*Sebastian Deterding, Gamification/UX designer & researcher). When badges are awarded for completing meaningful activities, they aren’t meaningless, silly or inflated. Consider the following examples:

Example 1: US Military campaign badges which are highly symbolic and prized:

Example 2: The Purple Heart medal. A powerful signal of merit:

Example 3: “Deal-toys”: Even people in big old banks have badges which are prized and proudly displayed!

When we worked with our customers to analyze how their badges were being used, we found that the vast majority of badges given were for genuine accomplishments and to express genuine gratitude. We’re not surprised because we designed the system to encourage meaningful creation and distribution of badges. We’ve also seen badges (which anyone can create and customize) take on a shared meaning - they become trusted indicators of achievement among each other.

Discovery #3: Game-design can help you create the right badge system.  
To get our system right, we incorporated many of the lessons in game design. Jane McGonigal, Byron Reeves & J. Leighton Read have all done some great work demonstrating how games can help solve real-world problems, including those in the workplace.

There are a few misconceptions about games & badges that should be cleared up.

• Misconception #1: Game-design is just about badges & leaderboards. Many “gameified” systems are based on a misconception that collecting badges is motivation enough. That’s not enough. Truly engaging games are designed about intrinsic rewards like mastery, competence, and self-efficacy. Badges are simply progress markers in this game.

• Misconception #2: Games have to be fun. Fact is, economists developed game theory to mathematically capture human behaviour in strategic situations where multiple players have to compete or collaborate for scarce resources (just like the workplace). Game theory has been used to develop war strategies and more.  Serious stuff.

• Misconception #3: Games are not appropriate at work.The reality is that work is already filled with games and game-elements. Promotions are just like leveling up. Bankers’ deal-toys & inflated pseudo-titles are no different than badges. Then there’s the career game where you’re competing for a job.

• Work is already filled with games.  They are mostly poorly designed games, but they are there.  So, don’t get too fussed with concern that badges are “too game-like” or “people will game them”.  They are already doing this; the question is about designing productive games.

Design lesson #1: Good badge design is not about features you bolt on. It’s about a careful design process. You can’t save a crappy work environment by bolting on badges. The activities that people get badges for at work have to be meaningful.

This takes many careful iterations of: understanding your employees, designing the system, observing behaviours, refining and iterating.  A critical element: having actual game designers working with HR and executive experts.

Design Lesson #2: Do it slowly and very carefully so you avoid unintended consequences. Scoreboards are a common game element. Fun and harmless in the virtual world of games. But in the workplace, depending on the context, they can feel like yet another form of control and pressure. Unless designed correctly. Similarly, you have to be careful with when and how you use monetary incentives tied to various game activities. For instance, early on, we ran a test where we allowed people to collect a $25 reward when they invited their co-workers to join Rypple. This cohort of users were significantly less likely to invite their co-workers than a control group that didn’t have an attached reward. Why? People told us that it didn’t seem appropriate to collect cash rewards for inviting co-workers!

Design Lesson #3: Simplicity counts. The harder we made it for people to do things with too many choices (unnecessary fields, ratings, options, etc.), the less they do it.