The Global Innovation Challenge is a showcase of PwC’s most innovative commercial solutions that solve wicked problems for both PwC clients and society as a whole. With a call to action to its 280,000+ employees across 155 countries, the challenge looks to uncover, test and showcase PwC’s most innovative early-stage solutions and services.

This year the challenge set new records with 353 entries from 48 countries. And after many competitive rounds, Perform Plus has been voted PwC’s most innovative, tech-enabled commercial solution 🎉.

Since 2018, Players and PwC-ers have worked together as a single Perform Plus team, brainstorming new roadmap features, solving wicked design problems, delivering high-velocity development sprints and pioneering how the big and the small collaborate. Together we continue to explore motivation and behaviour change mechanics that drive positive workplace outcomes at scale, for both businesses and their people.

This award has again shown the effectiveness of the Play product-partnership model. The partnership offers a unique experience, creating a single team by merging the best from big and small, who share a space and culture, optimised to deliver innovative solutions to some of the most wicked problems 🛰.

This isn’t the first and most definitely won't be the last of the awards Perform Plus will bring home. A big congratulations to everyone on the team!

Learn more about [Perform Plus here.](https://www.play-consult.co.uk/work/2)


Perform Plus wins PwC's Global Innovation Challenge 🏆

The role of gamification and its potential to improve engagement is not new. In 2013, in his book Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification, Rajat Prahia explained how gamification can play a key role in tapping into the core motivations of people, thereby helping companies create the type of engagement and excitement about work we all seek.

At the time Prahia was writing and publishing his book, I was working at Electronic Arts and was gripped by how successful games were in driving human behaviour. I became fascinated by the positive human impact gamification could have in the world of work, which led me to set up Play Consulting in 2014.

Play is a digital innovation studio built on the belief that game techniques can be used for more than trading money for virtual candy, but to create habits that help people achieve their goals. Our mission is to realise human potential and meaning at work, through playful experiences that inspire.

Whilst I have seen gamification expand in the workplace over the past decade, I believe it still has a long way to go. This may be down to popular perception as well as a lack of understanding of its potential and how best to apply it; when we talk about games many people still think of computer games for children or teens holed up in their bedrooms glued to their console. The first step in helping companies maximise the benefits of gamification is to help debunk this myth.

Here are 4 reasons why I believe we will see a lot more gamification in the future of work.

#### 1 – Gamification: more than the sum of badges and alerts

According to Gabe Zichermann, author of The Gamification Revolution, ‘Gamification is the process of using game thinking and game dynamics to engage audiences and solve problems’. The elements of gamification are often referred to as game mechanics and can encompass competition, challenges, collaboration, levels, badges, XP, and instant feedback. Used in various combinations, depending on the desired goal, these are designed to help broaden choices and ultimately influence our behaviour. As consumers, we see gamification every day, from rating systems used on sites such as Booking.com and Uber, through to loyalty points schemes and Audible badges.

For gamification to be successful in the workplace it needs to be treated like any other strategic business initiative, requiring careful planning, implementation focus and post-launch optimisation. Utilised correctly, gamification can unlock the potential for greater employee engagement, offering what no other media or tech can — a games mindset approach; where the player comes first, the focus is on the experience, wins are celebrated, and engagement becomes self-perpetuating.

>  **Grand Theft Auto, a video-game launched over 20 years ago has generated over $6 billion in revenue, more than Star Wars, Gone with the Wind and every Marvel movie combined.**

#### 2 – Games are big business

Games make a lot of money. In fact, they are outstripping all other media. Let’s take Grand Theft Auto. An action-adventure video game series first launched over 20 years ago, it has generated over $6 billion in revenue since its initial release and is, without doubt, the most financially successful media title of all time. It has surpassed the $4 billion achieved by best-selling films such as Star Wars and Gone with the Wind ([inclusive of adjustments for inflation](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-04-09-gta-v-is-the-most-profitable-entertainment-product-of-all-time)). And, for that matter, every single Marvel movie ever made [combined](https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/grand-theft-auto-v-has-made-more-than-every-marvel-move-combined-news.47444.html).

Game designers are able to do this because of data and insight; they have every piece of data about how their players work; they know when they play, for how long and how they behave in their games. In short, they have insight into their users’ behaviour and motivations and feed this back into product development continually improving and enhancing their games for ever-increasing engagement and success.

#### 3 – Games make meaningful connections

Games enable interactions, real-time feedback, and the opportunity to immerse the end-user (we like to call them Players) like no other media can. We are seeing an increase in popularity of multiplayer and community-based games; real-time, connected, global and cross-platform. Gaming as a connection medium, where players work together around a common purpose, is creating a new form of digital society. The impact of gamification on employee engagement is irrefutable. In his book, The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor explains how research has proven that ‘when we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive at work’.

>  **When there are games platforms competing with Netflix, it is no longer a niche industry.**

#### 4 – Games are not going anywhere soon

We need to look no further than Twitch, a powerful video gaming streaming platform, to appreciate the sheer scale of the games industry. Twitch describes itself as a social networking platform, a ‘home for gamers’ and has [15 million daily active users](https://mediakix.com/blog/top-twitch-statistics-live-streaming-game-platform/). Purchased by Amazon for nearly $1 billion in 2014, it’s currently the 12th most visited web site in the US, the 30th in the world ([source](https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitch-statistics/)), with games that have been viewed up to 356 million hours in total ([source](https://influencermarketinghub.com/twitch-stats/)). When there are games platforms competing with Netflix, it is no longer a niche industry.

#### Summary

As Prahia says in Loyalty 3.0: 'With gamification, business owners now have a steering wheel and an accelerator, and can react instantly to whatever comes their way.'

At Play, we have seen the success our clients such as PwC and Unilever have achieved through gamification. We’ve also put our money where our mouth is and have designed a gamified work social platform, called Totem. Totem offers companies a fun way for them to build stronger work cultures through enhanced employee relationships. Our clients achieve incredible platform adoption and very high daily usage rates because their employees enjoy using the platform to connect with each other irrespective of rank or department. Through Totem we are helping our clients maximise the benefits of gamification to supercharge their teams by building positive workplace connections, and ultimately making work itself more meaningful.

**How are you using, or how would you like to use gamification, to create playful experiences that inspire in your workplace? I’d love your thoughts.**

**By  [Marcus Thornley](https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusthornley/) – CEO at Play**

Harnessing a games mindset can boost employee engagement

In 2019 Play Consulting was successful in securing Innovate UK funding for the further development of Totem as a tool to measure, nurture and improve organisational culture.

**[Innovate UK](https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/innovate-uk)** is part of **[UK Research and Innovation](https://www.ukri.org/?_ga=2.208585298.1386598060.1601374641-1084027328.1598432154)**, funded by the UK government. They fund business and research collaborations to accelerate innovation, drive economic growth, and realise the potential of new ideas. 

Play applied for funding to support our goal in developing a world-first approach to employee engagement through Totem, a unique workplace Culture Tech tool. We are looking to address global productivity gaps through the application of sophisticated analytics and gamification techniques.

Here at Play, we specialise in aligning unique gamification approaches with cutting-edge platform development. We’re on a mission to realise human potential at work by creating an inclusive tool that makes culture everyone’s business.

>'The Play Totem Team are at the forefront of innovative approaches to employee engagement, fundamentally shifting organisational structures and empowering staff in a way that is not only innovative but embedded and long-lasting.'
**Tom Kennard – Director at Granted Consultancy (the team who supported our application)**

The development of Totem will allow organisations to truly measure culture in realtime, in a way that is intelligent and gamified. This insight will allow leaders to take action, continuously improving culture in a personalised way. 

We’re working hard on the development and release of this innovative new work, so there is certainly more to come. 

Keep your eyes peeled! An even stronger [Totem](https://totem.team/) is on the way.

Play secures innovate funding

**By  [Matthew Osborne](https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-osborn-0060849a/) – QA Engineer at Play**

If you’re a kid making a PowerPoint to get a puppy, or at work going through procurement for a tech vendor — we’re always evaluating. We think about price, value, time and benefit, but not necessarily in any order. We can end up abandoning our cart because building a mental business case is too hard, or we end up buying the wrong thing.

When we’re afraid of making the wrong choice we spend too much time analysing every possibility. When we’re convinced we know with our gut what the right answer is, we don’t consider all the alternatives.

We have to avoid the analysis paralysis and the best way to do this is by keeping it simple. ‘The business case’ can be as easy as writing a list of pros and cons, but it’s important to recognise which features are red herrings!

I’m fairly good at buying things, which makes it sound like I’m constantly on a shopping spree, but the truth is I don’t like wasting my money, or my company’s. Usually, I’m buying technology, so I try to think about the whole service offered and if any of that is actually useful to me:

#### 1 - Support

Firstly, do you need it? If you know you’ll need zero support, there’s no need to be paying a premium. Secondly, are they skilled enough to give support? You might be comparing a customer service department to a user forum. The key here is to question it, understand what the support looks like and what the support is like elsewhere.

#### 2 - Flexibility

Sometimes you don’t want to subscribe to a 5-year contract. I’ve always been a buy-once type of person for hardware, favouring subscription models for software. When it comes to work this can be a little different, think about how your need might grow. If you think you might need to upgrade in future, make sure this is an option.

#### 3 - Free trials

My advice here isn’t to do a free trial, it’s to do a free trial seriously. Use the hell out of it! The problem with free trials or pilots is that it’s going to be difficult to show value. This is because of two things: 1) you won’t use it in the same way as if you had paid for it. If you spend a small fortune on a video game, you’re sure as heck going to play it. If you get a free game, you won’t feel bad if it gathers dust; 2) you’re only invested for a limited time. If you know you’ve got the tool for life, you’re already thinking of how to integrate it into your workflow and really make it work. It’s unlikely you’ll fall in love within 30 days as you did with Netflix.

#### 4 - Added Extras

If you’re not going to use it, it’s not an added extra. You might see a bunch of features on a providers website and think “great, copy and paste that to the pros list”. But more features doesn’t mean better business case.

#### 5 - Beware of the upgrades

I always take it as a good sign when a provider will let you use a downgraded version of their tool, especially when you’re just figuring things out. I’m thinking of Charles Proxy and OBS here. I use their Lite versions because I have everything I need, and the rest is just excess for now.

#### 6 - Do more than Google

Unboxing videos are great on Youtube, and if you’re able to, find demos or user-guides. Try to see how you’d use it as if you were an expert. Try not to rely on social media too much, there’s a lot of sponsored content out there. Look for independent user reviews, it might sound shallow but well-written criticism is super helpful.

———

So, putting this into practice I’ll tell you about a recent personal purchase. Internet (expecting groans here). I went with a provider that was a reasonable price but I could upgrade if I need to, no smoke and mirror bolt-ons I’d never use, and had great reviews online. Buuut, then it stopped working.

Nowadays we shop around because there are providers willing to compete on customer service, price, and frankly, being decent human beings. They’re helping us to build the list of pros and cons, we just need to select what to use for our business case.

The more simple we make it, the easier it is to part with our money and not feel like we’ve been done over

6 top tips on your next tech purchase

**By  [Harry Lynn-Evans](https://www.linkedin.com/in/harrylynnevans/) – Head of Product at Play**

Saying 'work hard, play hard' these days makes you sound like a bit of a melon. It implies an ultra-aggressive approach to sending emails followed by manic binge-watching Netflix. More importantly, it implies that ‘play’ and ‘work’ are mutually exclusive when actually, they aren’t. (It also implies that talking to you will be a massive bore).

Work shouldn’t be a fun vacuum – we spend too much of our lives at work to let that happen.  Yes, a large chunk will be dry (I’m looking at you conference calls), but not all the boring bits have to be so void of emotion and energy.

If we take ourselves less seriously and be a little more playful, we will enjoy our jobs more, engage with each other and build epic workplace cultures. You may even laugh a little.

‘Play hard’ should just be translated to having more fun. There are two types of fun at work: 
**1)** Fun you make time for
**2)** Fun you put into your time

The first is where the money goes (if you’re lucky); Christmas parties, team-building trips and late-night karaoke (mine is “Rocket Man” in case you’re wondering), but it’s the second kind of fun I want to talk about. It’s the fun that you inject into the day-to-day that gets me up in the morning.

At Play, our company mission is 'to create playful experiences that inspire.' It’s become the north star for everything we do. Play isn’t about having as many Christmas parties as possible (one is quite enough), it’s about putting a playful spin on every day to get better engagement and greater results. It’s about wanting to go into work on Monday. It’s about being yourself.

When making my own game, someone gave me advice I’ve never forgotten:

>**'Making a game is easy, making a fun game is hard.'
– An insightful buddy of mine**

He was 100% right. I made the game, but it wasn’t fun enough (R.I.P Barry the Goat). Today, I feel the same about my work – sending emails is easy, but making them playful, friendly or engaging is the hard part. Especially when you’re against a deadline!

At work, people are often reluctant to loosen up because they’re worried about being perceived as unprofessional. If you trust that your team can do their jobs and can enjoy themselves at the same time, then it’s easier to inject fun into everyday tasks. If instead, you believe that “serious = professional” then you’ve fallen into a trap that will kill team morale, damage your output and ultimately, increase turnover.

We’ve done some big playful projects at Play; we made learning about tax fun through a Tax Game (no, really), we’ve built apps that give badges for scanning and measuring pipes and we’ve created online leagues for engineers fixing boilers. But we’ve also done 6 small things that you can take away and try today.

#### 1 – Absolutely do not send that next meeting invite without an emoji 🙅🏻‍♂️

Who’s super excited for the 'Finance Quarterly Update'? No-one.

Who’s super excited for the '💰Super Magic Money Meeting!💰'? Well, a few more people who are a touch more excited than before. Success! You don’t need to set the world alight, but injecting a little more fun makes your interactions lighter.

#### 2 – Start sessions with a quiz 📋

How do you think we raise interest before meetings?

We ask questions before! About to show usage stats? Ask your team to guess first. About to present client feedback? Get your partner to take a guess at what they said. People are much more likely to remember something which made them think first.

#### 3 – Share personal stories 📖

So much of the narrative in business is contrived to look grown-up and serious. Company News and updates can be personal stories with genuine feeling and humour, where appropriate.

#### 4 – Play an actual game – like our Treasure Hunt 🏴‍☠️

Your task is to think about when you can use this game. As it happens, we’ve got a great template here you can use. Our Halloween Treasure Hunt toured all our Players through our office. It only took about 10 minutes but it had everyone enjoying themselves, for new Players they met new people, and for existing it was an opportunity to catch up with people you don’t usually connect with on a daily basis. Christmas is coming up, what better place to start?

Remember that applying a bit of fun at work isn’t a gimmick. Playful experiences don’t need to be complex, but it is a muscle that needs exercise often. Play’s mission is to create playful experiences that inspire, which means we always trying to exercise this muscle too.

So when you’re next bringing the team together, ask yourself: 'How can I make this more playful?'


Work hard, play often

The world of work has changed dramatically in what feels like an eternity of the same really long day. Company stand-ups, all hands, coffee breaks and brainstorms have all moved online, where we’ve realised new challenges around video call burnout, unprecedented realms of wifi issues and general challenges around remote productivity. 

As we start to consider our return to the office and how that might look, it’s important to consider the impact so much change has had on employee engagement. We know what good looked like, but how does that translate to today? 

#### Taking accountability for employee engagement

It’s been proven that companies with engaged employees experience enhanced commitment and loyalty, fresh innovative ideas, more discretionary effort and a more positive working environment. 

> 
**David McLeod, professor at Cass Business School says: 'employee engagement is an approach designed to ensure that employees are committed to their organisation’s goals and values, motivated to contribute to organisational success, and are able at the same time to enhance their own sense of well-being.'** 

It’s an approach that businesses should take accountability for and take it upon themselves to create conditions that inspire their employees to offer more of their capabilities and potential. Something that has been hard to do when everything we know about work has been stripped back and rewritten. 

#### The way we were 

Typical best-practice around employee engagement included communicating business values to keep teams aligned, investing in training, increasing social activities that enable people to bring themselves to work and, of course, giving employees channels for feedback.

Transitioning to remote work we’ve seen all of these activities challenged. Socials are virtual (that’s if you haven’t given up on your quizzes yet), budgets have been cut in half leaving little left to training, and the lack in presence might have seen engagement in your feedback channels reduce. Your team could be feeling more disengaged than ever and with the return to the office pending – now is the time to facilitate change. 

#### What good looks like in today's normal 

Getting your team back to the office might not mean every day and it might not mean the whole team. It’s possible most businesses will have employees alternating remote and office workdays to help with social distancing measures or new policies. 

As the term ‘office culture’ transcends to online and offline efforts, no longer tied to one singular place, we can find new meaning. Building a great online culture will help you build trust and keep teams engaged. 

#### Have leadership front and centre

At times like these, visibility is everything. Having leadership speak out about the ever-changing and evolving work environment will create the transparency your teams value. Even if your company has more of a flat structure, leadership’s consistent voice will act as a source of truth that offers the stability and security that’s needed right now. 

Create an online space where your employees can see regular updates from leadership, whether they’re in the form of text, videos or podcasts. If all-hands or offline announcements have taken place, make sure these are recorded and shared across these channels. Off the back of these do your employees have a way of interacting with this information, can they leave comments and questions? 

#### Create a two-way channel for feedback 

It’s important to have opportunities for two-way communication between employees and the business. To move towards a more trusting environment which drives honest communication and builds solutions that work, you need to speak to your people and ask them what they need. These can come in many forms and there is no one size fits all solution.

**Q&As**: Schedule Q&As with leadership on different topics, inform the team ahead of time when they’re going to happen so they can prepare questions and topics they’d like to be discussed. 

**Pulse Surveys**: Pulse surveys are a great way to get feedback from the team at regular intermissions, you can keep an eye out for correlations between announcements and morale or the like. 

**Questionnaires**: A traditional questionnaire on a pressing topic like the office move, where you can ask specifically what teams are concerned about. Give employees the opportunity to disclose their name for further discussion if they’d like. 

#### Improve morale, mental wellbeing and motivation

Dedicate time to the outcomes of your feedback channels and create actions. How can you build trust and positivity? What can you do to better support your team through this challenging time? How can you inspire and align them with the company mission?

Some things are small but impactful, like taking the time to celebrate individuals and teams for their efforts and contributions whether it’s work-related or for championing company culture. 

Other actions take more planning like creating a supportive offering around employee mental health and wellbeing, but there are growing numbers of corporate packages available like Self Space or Headspace for Work. 

#### Bring in the right tools 

Sometimes HR technology can be renowned for low adoption across the board. This can happen for a few reasons like poor design or UX, but it can also be because these tools usually deliver messaging from the business to employees but rarely the other way round. 

Give your employees the ability to create community and replicate office culture online [through platforms that give every team member the same share of voice](https://www.totem.team/). Enabling them to share experiences, opinions and recognition with teams builds trust, creates a sense of union and boosts morale. 



Employee engagement: what good looks like today 


For many businesses, hybrid working (working interchangeably between home and the office) has become a feature of our professional lives, and all the indicators show that it’s here to stay.

At Play, we’re passionate about building inclusive trust-based work cultures, both for our customers and ourselves. While we eat our dogfood/drink our own champagne and leverage Totem to keep our culture strong, along the way, we’ve found that hybrid team meetings pose one of the most challenging aspects of this new way of working.

Meetings have worked well when either fully remote or fully in-person. But things become more difficult when some of the team are together while others dial in, affecting productivity, communication, and ultimately, whether the meeting goals are met.

We’ve been trying a few different things that we’ve found have helped to create inclusive hybrid meetings, and we thought we’d share our own learnings here.

#### See and hear
One of the most critical components of a hybrid meeting, much like an online-only meeting, is making sure everyone can both see and hear what's going on. This doesn’t mean you need to invest in high-grade audio equipment or complex camera systems (although you are welcome to do this), but with a little forethought, and by understanding the tech you’ve already got, you can deliver a video feed that is engaging and inclusive with ease.

For starters, if you’re in a large room with people maintaining social distancing, one dedicated laptop for the video stream when placed in the right location should be able to do most of the work. A small table (or even something like a music stand) placed in the right location can make a huge impact on what your video and audio quality sounds like. 

The audio is the hardest to get right, especially if you get into bigger rooms, so a small USB conference mic could be a big help here (on Amazon they range from about £20 - £60), but simply being mindful and moving the laptop around as different people speak will also make a difference. Or, in a pinch, dialling a mobile phone into the conference and using it as a microphone can work pretty well.

#### Keep everyone in mind
One of the easiest traps to fall into is for the group dynamic of people who are physically present to take over the meeting. This isn’t inherently bad, but it can leave those dialling in feeling disconnected and disengaged. 

We’ve found that the best way to ensure everyone stays visible, heard and included, is to default to checking in with those dialling in **first**. For example, when it comes to questions, ask those dialling in to speak before those in the room. Or if there are questions that come up in the flow of the dialogue, keep a careful eye on the chat function you’ve got on your video conference tech, or direct messaging software, so that any feedback, questions, or additions can be included from everyone.

#### Someone’s the owner
Ownership of meetings was important before, but now it’s critical to make sure that someone in the room takes charge and ensures that everyone is included. This role doesn’t have to be the person presenting or running through the content; their job is to keep everyone engaged and to make sure that all team members have a voice.

We’ve found that this works best when there’s a clear agenda for the meeting, as it lets the meeting owner have clear objectives for the attendees to go through, and will help those dialling in to contribute accordingly.

This can also be a great way to empower junior team members or new members of the team, as it gives a level of responsibility and visibility beyond them contributing to the content of the meeting. 

#### Share best practices
As you begin to use your spaces in new ways, you and your teams will be learning what’s working and what isn’t when it comes to hybrid meetings. This can take many different forms and will help you improve the meetings that your business has to ensure they are as meaningful and productive as possible.

Think about sharing your own successes and failures in your internal comms channels. Was there a particular set up that worked well? Take a picture and share it publicly so others can replicate it. Was there an agenda format that really helped? A screenshot and a post about results can do wonders for others who are trying to solve the same problem. This type of open source problem solving is a huge component of successful hybrid working, and aside from it improving your meetings it will help to build familiarity and relationships across different parts of your business.

We’re still learning about hybrid working and the nuances and changes that make it successful. Our latest research paper digs into how people actually feel about hybrid working, and uncovers some surprising findings about familiarity, trust, and what companies can do to ensure they are creating cultures ready for hybrid working.


**Grab your copy today:**
**https://hello.totem.team/the-hidden-impact-of-hybrid-working/**


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