Article: Firing the competitive spirit through quizzing

Learning & Development

Firing the competitive spirit through quizzing

As companies struggle with engagement and measurability of learning, quizzing provides a highly effective alternative
Firing the competitive spirit through quizzing
 

The biggest benefit of gamified quizzing is it can keep the competitive fire burning in participating individuals as they are intrinsically motivated to showcase their skills

 

There are distinct trends that the L&D space in India is witnessing. The first trend is of digitizing learning content. An increasing number of companies are looking to provide digital learning content to their employees, administered through several forms and channels. This trend is majorly seen among large traditional companies. The second trend, mostly seen among VC-funded companies is of creating formal LMS systems. These VC-funded companies are now out of their startup mode and looking to formalize their learning system as they enter a new phase of expansion and growth. The pharma and manufacturing sectors are showing trends of creating centres of excellence as part of their L&D strategy. A number of these companies are setting up these centres of excellence for their most crucial business-impacting functions such as sales or product centre of excellence. The ITES sector is investing heavily on platforms for achieving specific objectives, such as onboarding a large pool of recruits or getting new recruits up to speed within a desired timeframe.

The market of L&D in India comprises both the big boys with comprehensive learning systems and the small and medium product companies with specialized products. There is peaceful co-existence between both sets, because both are serving different market needs. There are even some players who cater to one specific aspect of learning. For example, there are learning services or products specifically for documenting KYC norms in a bank. The market space will likely see some consolidations through acquisitions in the coming months.

The market for quizzing within the L&D space has great potential to grow in the coming months. Typically the consumer market views a quiz in traditional formats made popular by TV shows, such as KBC or Bournvita quiz contests. But the definition and purpose of any quiz is far deeper than that, and hence the manifestations of application of concepts can also change. A quiz is any form of competition which can fire an individual’s competitive DNA. It is an assessment of an individual’s knowledge and an opportunity to showcase abilities. The space of gamified quizzing is likely to pick up by several notches. The biggest benefit of gamified quizzing is that it has the capability of keeping the competitive fire burning in participating individuals as they are intrinsically motivated to showcase their skills and demonstrate their abilities across the length of a learning intervention.

The space of gamified quizzing has very interesting manifestations in the field of employer branding. Companies can actively use this platform to engage with students in campus and maintain a top-of-mind recall across an extended period of time. Such initiatives are delivered both through online and offline channels, and quizzes demonstrate that they are great channels to drive engagement with any learning initiative. One example of such an initiative is the popular Mahindra Auto contest. Quizzing platforms are also used to drive employee engagement and build intellectual capital in an organization. Many companies across the industry are looking to employ some form of quizzing platform to drive new skills or introduce new technical or functional capabilities among employees. Lastly, companies also use quizzing platforms for policy awareness. These can be administered both by online and offline channels.

Two key learning challenges plague organisations across industries — engagement crisis and measurability. Engagement crisis refers to the phenomenon when participants in an initiative are unable to dedicate their attention and motivation to the lessons. The measurability crisis refers to the inability of organizations to understand how much of learning delivery is reinforced among participants and how best to measure the impact.

Companies which are serious about driving change through learning are actually creating specialized roles to facilitate their transformation into learning-oriented organizations. For example, companies are creating specialized roles such as ‘HR Transformation Officer’ to facilitate the change management effort needed to introduce new talent management paradigms. The first and foremost is the ability of the learning provider to have strategic conversations.

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Topics: Learning & Development, #Gamification

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