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Engaging or eye rolling? Exploring how to gamify HR processes with AI

August 28, 2025
Drew Maginn

For many Human Resources (HR) professionals, attracting and maintaining employee attention can be a challenge. While certain activities like mandatory training and well-being initiatives are important, they can sometimes be met with a lack of enthusiasm. To make these activities more attractive to employees, many HR departments have turned to boosting employee motivation with gamified artificial intelligence (AI). By integrating personalized HR tools, such as digital performance management, many organizations feel they have an opportunity to make activities once considered dull and repetitive feel new and exciting. But behind all the hype and flashiness, it’s important to first understand what gamification is, where it can be applied and how it can be effectively used by your organization.

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What is HR gamification?

HR gamification involves adding game-design elements into human resources activities to create a more enjoyable and engaging experience for your employees. Gamification aims to enhance certain activities by mixing in “fun” components, such as awarding points and badges, integrating challenges and offering rewards. 

What types of HR activities can be enhanced using gamification?

While there are a number of opportunities to explore gamification in human resources, some activities lend themselves more naturally to this type of approach. According to Laura Fujita, senior well-being analyst at TELUS, gamification is commonly found within certain areas of HR practices.

  • Recruitment and selection: Gamification has become more commonly used during the recruitment and selection process, including offering gamified simulations or challenges to job candidates to assess their fit for a position. In addition to wanting to create a more engaging recruitment process, many human resources departments see this approach to assessment as a great way to highlight their organizational culture and how they engage their employees.

  • Learning and development: Gamification elements can be added to professional development opportunities, such as online training modules, by including interactive components (e.g., progress bars, games that assess learning outcomes), allowing for self-guided learning experiences and awarding badges or points for completing courses.   

 

  • Employee recognition: Employees can be encouraged to recognize the work of their peers through systems that allow employees to be formally recognized (e.g., point-based achievement badges). This could include recognition of specific work accomplishments or opportunities to highlight employees who demonstrate the core values of the organization. These systems can be accessed by managers to integrate into employee performance reviews while adding a social element to build relationships across your organization.

  • Health and well-being initiatives: Whether the focus is on physical activity, nutrition or overall health and well-being, gamification can be leveraged for individual and team-based initiatives. For individuals, the opportunity to set personal goals can keep motivation high, while team-based competition or cooperative challenges can connect employees across larger organizations, including those operating in different provinces or countries. Rewards could also be integrated into existing benefits, such as allowing employees to earn additional dollars toward their health care spending accounts by participating in different initiatives. 

” “As a starting point, always ask yourself basic questions like ‘What is the purpose and benefit of this technology?’ and ‘How will employees be prompted or encouraged to keep engaging with this technology over time?’ Also, commit to engaging employees upfront to get feedback on what gamification features they want or would find useful, and check in later to find out what’s working well and what isn’t.” ”

When and how can HR processes be gamified with AI?
At first glance, the benefits of gamifying elements of your human resource practices might seem overwhelmingly positive. However, as with all new technology, there are a range of factors to consider. Fujita explains, “As a starting point, always ask yourself basic questions like ‘What is the purpose and benefit of this technology?’ and ‘How will employees be prompted or encouraged to keep engaging with this technology over time?’ Also, commit to engaging employees upfront to get feedback on what gamification features they want or would find useful, and check in later to find out what’s working well and what isn’t.”

In addition, Fujita offers these considerations to keep in mind when assessing if gamification is right for your workforce.

  • Understand organizational readiness: Before adopting some of these tools, human resources departments must assess whether their organization has the right culture for these approaches to stick. This includes leadership buy-in to participate and encourage their staff to participate, trust among staff that their personal data will remain private and a technology infrastructure that can integrate gamification without feeling overwhelming for your workforce. 
  • Select technology that can be customized: While many new technologies are presented as foolproof, especially when it comes to AI, a thorough analysis is required to determine whether a technology truly fits your specific needs. If there isn’t an opportunity to make adjustments and customize the experience based on feedback from employees, it’s unlikely that these tools will be successful, no matter how perfect they might seem.

  • Prioritize data protection and privacy: In some instances, gamification requires employees to share personal data to enhance their experience. Any breach or failure to protect this data will damage the trust you’ve built with employees. Employees should participate with a clear understanding of how their personal data is being used, who has access to it and how they can opt out, without penalty.  
  • Plan for accessibility and participation equity: With a diverse workforce comes a diverse set of experiences and needs as it relates to technology use. Some employees might have accessibility needs relating to vision impairments, hearing loss or limited motor skills that may determine whether or not they can effectively participate. In addition, you will need to consider employees’ different comfort levels with technology, varying work schedules (e.g., shift work), cultural differences and generational preferences. This isn’t to say gamification can’t be effectively integrated – it should just be adaptable to the needs of different individuals and to limit situations where keen employees are unable to participate. 

Commit to ongoing monitoring and evaluation: Gamification is built on engaging employees, and this engagement needs to be measured on an ongoing basis. Outcomes should be identified and tracked, such as utilization over time, participation among different employee groups and popular versus seldom used features. Without this type of measurement, human resources departments, and often senior leaders, will become impatient wondering whether this investment was worth the time and resources it required. 

In the end, while gamification can provide an opportunity to enhance certain areas of human resources, its application should always be undertaken with a certain degree of caution. Like any new undertaking, taking small steps, building trust and listening to your workforce will always yield the best results. 

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