It changes the way gamification is implemented for performance or learning because it creates an active, personalized, and automated dialogue with the employee. Examples include recognition, reminders, and notifications on goals or tasks, suggestions for additional learning, as well as getting managers to provide feedback and review team performance. All engagement automation messages can include deep links that direct employees exactly to the next task or challenge they are expected to engage with.

"Just like marketing automation is used to automate marketing – personalize and make it contextual – and eliminate repetitive and time-consuming work, engagement automation is about better management and communication with employees for performance management or learning," said Gal Rimon, Founder and CEO of GamEffective.

"Old school enterprise gamification involves showing employees points, badges, and leaderboards and hoping this will prompt them into action. However, research shows that people are better driven through intrinsic motivation; the existence of points, badges and leaderboards actually doesn’t engage employees much."

"Yet, people are willing to have a digital dialogue about performance and learning; gamified platforms weren’t supporting this capability. Engagement automation fills the gap since it directs employees to the right action at the right time and ensures that a constant dialogue about performance and learning is always underway, actively prompting the employee through continuous personalized messages."

Engagement automation features include

• performance interactions such as verbal feedback on goal achievement
• coaching messages, driving employees to focus on certain areas or carry out certain learning, addressing knowledge gaps
• recognition messages
• introducing challenges, such as bet on yourself
• communicating progress
• driving campaign participation, such as short-term performance goals or learning initiatives
• guiding employees through performance and learning tasks
• pushing employee completion of quizzes and learning activities for continuous learning
• deep-linked calls to action driving employees to their next task
• communicating performance and learning challenges, including reminders and success messages.

Automation occurs through easy to use trigger and audience mechanisms. The system administrator defines certain audiences (based on behavior, performance, or learning) and the rules that should trigger any engagement automation activity. The underlying technology is a sophisticated yet easy to use rule engine within the GamEffective system.

Dani Johnson, Vice President, Learning & Development Research at Bersin by Deloitte said, "Because workplace skills are turning over so rapidly, a large part of our work in the future will probably consist of learning. Organizations that build the right conditions to support this constant learning – not just systems, processes, and culture, but, to a large extent, technology that helps employees learn while improving their work – will likely be more competitive".