Recently, I asked my kids to help clean up our home. After my requests repeatedly failed to motivate them to do anything, I changed tactics and made a game of it. I set a timer for 15 minutes and told them if they simply took everything that was theirs back to their rooms before it went off, we would have some ice cream. Amazingly, my kids got hustling without further complaint. We all worked together, met our goal, and enjoyed a clean house, eating delicious ice cream.
Like getting kids to clean up their mess, encouraging employee compliance with a records management program can be challenging. In the 2023 ARMA IG Maturity Index survey, 45.1% of respondents believed their organizations lacked the essential components of an information governance program. A key element to increasing your records management program’s maturity is engaging employees and making them active participants. And a great way to engage employees is to make learning and compliance a game.
Com-pliance Starts With Com-petition
People naturally want to contribute to a team’s success and love to compete and win. Suppose you want to improve your organization’s success with your records management program. In that case, you can leverage that competitive nature by creating a friendly competition that focuses on the organizational goal of records management compliance. Creating a “gamified” training experience will develop a culture of compliance throughout your organization.
Get In the Game
Creating a game out of training and compliance makes it seem like it’s not even work, which makes it extremely effective. Professional services firm KPMG developed a “gamified training tool” and used it with both leaders and employees to provide a better understanding of available products and services. Researchers found that the gamified training helped to increase collected fees by 25%, the number of clients by 16%, and opportunities from new clients by 22%.
You don’t have to build a complex tool from the ground up to enjoy similar benefits. Find minor ways to “gamify” your RRS training. For instance, you could develop a contest between departments related to RRS compliance with the following competitions to earn points:
- Audit random record series related to separate departments and determine which series has the lowest percentage of incorrectly assigned records in the past quarter.
- Distribute a pop quiz to test individuals’ understanding of the RRS and see which department returns the highest average score.
- Measure the volume of records pending disposition and determine which department has the lowest percentage of outstanding records.
- Send an email asking to identify the correct record series for a well-known organizational record and see who responds first.
Make sure to provide a fun prize! The engagement rate with your training competitions increases when employees understand there is something to be won.
Bonus Prizes: Increased Attention to Records Management and Metrics
These smaller-scale interactions are more individually engaging than large-scale training presentations, and you can leverage that engagement by sneaking in additional training. Mix general training or informational messages with contest-related ones so your employees will eagerly anticipate all messages from the records management department.
You can also specifically design competitions to provide a secondary benefit of gathering metrics for your program. Tracking correctly identified records or disposition efforts provides information on accountability that you can use to find weaknesses or strengths and to understand where to focus upcoming training and improvement projects.
In It to Win It
As you gamify your records management training for your employees, you will find increased engagement and compliance, leading to a more successful records management program. Considering the benefits of higher compliance, increased attention to your program, and valuable metrics, it’s definitely a game worth playing.
Disclaimer: The purpose of this post is to provide general education on information governance topics. The statements are informational only and do not constitute legal advice. If you have specific questions regarding the application of the law to your business activities, you should seek the advice of your legal counsel.