Values are present in our daily lives. From the moment we step into the workplace, we start behaving in ways that align with the organisation's culture and values. When we move to a new organisation, we adapt to its culture, adjusting our behaviour accordingly. But how exactly do we learn these values? Typically, from onboarding materials, presentations, and corporate trainings. By the end of these programs, we will have internalised the desired behaviours.
Oh, ... wait. This process is far more complex.
Value-development initiatives in many organisations remain largely theoretical. Core values are defined, a workshop or two is held, and leaders expect this will naturally translate into everyday behaviour. Unfortunately, values are not absorbed passively, merely by reading a document or attending a seminar. True value development requires practice, feedback, emotional engagement, and a clear sense of progress. It demands active participation and sustained motivation.
This is precisely where gamified learning has emerged as a highly effective tool. Gamification is not about turning learning into a game. Instead, it leverages game-based mechanics to make value development tangible, experiential, and repeatable. Rather than simply discussing the desired behaviours, gamification introduces challenges, real-life scenarios, and decision points where participants can experiment, fail safely, learn, and try again. Values stop being abstract concepts and become something people actually do.
This is critical because values are ultimately behavioural. Understanding what empathy means in theory and applying it in a tense or challenging situation are entirely different. Gamified tasks guide individuals through micro-decisions, enabling them to translate theoretical knowledge into real-life actions. Through repeated practice, reflection, and feedback, participants internalise and gradually incorporate these behaviours into their professional routines.
The key reason gamification is so effective is that it taps into core drivers of human motivation. Game-based structures offer a sense of competence ("I can do this"), autonomy ("I choose how I approach it"), progress ("I see myself improving"), and connection ("I'm part of something"). These internal motivators keep people engaged far more effectively than any poster or handbook.
Traditional methods of conveying values often fall short because they rely on compliance with external expectations. In contrast, gamification fosters active participation, internal motivation, and personal ownership. By turning value development into a dynamic experience, gamified learning creates a shift: learners internalise values by acting on them repeatedly, in varied contexts, with meaningful feedback and measurable milestones.
A gamified environment also provides a safe space for experimentation. Participants can explore new approaches, take risks, and make mistakes without real-world consequences. This encourages reflection, creativity, and ownership - elements rarely present in conventional training formats.
Creating a value-driven culture is not about mission statements or declarations, it is about consistent, everyday choices. Gamified learning bridges the gap between stated values and actual behaviour, transforming abstract ideals into practical habits, and habits into culture.
Successful game-based corporate trainings
- Deloitte Leadership Academy uses missions, badges, leaderboards, and virtual reality modules to enhance leadership skills, increasing engagement by 47% and leadership effectiveness by 37%.
- SAP Roadwarriorsimulates customer interactions for sales training, motivating employees through points, badges, and leaderboards - for responding correctly to different scenarios.
- Hyundai's Merchants game supports long-term negotiation and conflict-management training with high engagement levels.
Games for Business Solutions
- PwC Multipoly offers a virtual internship simulation where students experience value-driven decision-making in real tasks.
- Coca-Cola HBC Revenuepoly gamifies strategic decisions to reinforce values such as ownership and customer focus.
- MOL Group uses story-based digital modules to drive mindset shifts and facilitate the adoption of new processes through gamification.
Implementing value-based gamified learning requires careful planning. Our process is built to translate organisational values into engaging learning experiences. Following a consultation to understand your culture, goals, and the specific values you want to strengthen, starts a collaborative planning phase, where we translate those values into learning paths, specific tasks, and decision-points.
Next, we customise the gamified platform: storylines, content, challenges, and branding are all adapted to reflect your organisation's identity. After internal testing and quality checks, the platform is deployed across the company with full support.
From day one, you can track engagement, progress, and behavioural change in real time - making value development measurable, visible, and sustainable.
In essence, gamified learning turns the abstract into the actionable, enabling employees to live organisational values rather than merely learning about them. By combining practice, feedback, emotional engagement, and measurable progress, gamification transforms value development into an immersive, ongoing, and effective experience.
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