How one Food and Beverage company promotes company culture with gamification: Guest blog

One of the biggest challenges for companies is to create a unified company culture, where all employees are well-trained, motivated, and share the same vision.

Transmitting values in a way that people will remember is not an easy task, much less when it comes to companies with 800 employees, high levels of turnover, different distribution channels, or limited communication systems.

Javier Garcia Guardiola, has specialized in training and development, since 2016 in the Agora brewing group, where he is currently responsible for HR development. He chose gamification with Atrivity as the preferred solution to bring employees at all levels together through the Mastery of Beers.

Fortunately, there are quick and dynamic solutions such as gamification. This innovative training method helps companies transmit and reinforce the company culture while increasing employee engagement and generating a positive workplace.

90% of the companies that incorporate a game in the organization, perceive their gamification initiatives as a success, and the Agora Group, food industry, is no exception.

The oldest independent beer group in Spain, Grupo Agora, sought to communicate beer culture along with the company values at all levels of the organization.

Q: What was your need before you met Atrivity?

We wanted to find a way to reinforce the knowledge we impart in our training programs. We were looking for a dynamic and effective solution that would help employees retain information and at the same time feel more involved with the organization.

Q: Why did you consider gamification as a possible solution?

It fits perfectly with the dynamic solution we needed to get employees excited about learning. In addition, the challenge of half of the staff having no corporate email. The app technology allows us to reach everyone.

As for the knowledge reinforcement, microlearning promotes memorization - the most crucial learning goal. The game format lowers the participation barrier making it easy for everyone to play- from directors, frontline managers to our logistics and support staff.

Q: What has been the problem that has been solved?

Actually there was no specific problem, what we were looking for was to be able to offer an experience of value, an intangible benefit to implement the brewing culture in the organization- so to establish a share company culture.

The challenge we had was how to transmit that culture to all levels and departments of the company, 50% of employees do not have corporate mail, therefore a difficult audience to engage.

Q: How was the game execution experience?

The app technology makes access quick for everyone. Managers, sales teams, logistics technicians, administrative staff all participated. The game experience reinforced the sense of belonging and commitment to the company. They really were truly motivated.

During the implementation we discovered that it takes time to develop good questions. We turned to our council of gurus, the beer experts, to develop the questions about the "beer culture".

The time invested was worthwhile. We managed to motivate our employees and reinforce key knowledge that gives us that competitive edge and instills positive employer branding.

Q: How was the result after using Atrivity?

The results have shown us that the format works.

• The game lasted 5 days.

• The level of participation and "engagement" of the employees was 77%.

• The initial correct answer rate was 60% and a final success rate of 89%— that's a 29% improvement rate in just 5 days!

The data speaks for itself, but the best thing has been the reaction of the employees.

Word has spread throughout the organization and those who didn't participate, are excited to join the next Atrivity game.

The Council of Gurus even requested access to the game. We created a game just for them. Some members of the brewery's founding family heard about the game and requested access. Evidently they were so motivated that they were challenging each other as early as 7:00!

We got the solution we were looking for that fits into our company culture. We even exceeded expectations in just 5 days.

Q: Do you have plans to use Atrivity again?

After the positive experience with Atrivity as a pilot game, we decided to sign-on for the annual subscription to be able to leverage the variety of functionalities.

We're looking to use it for new hire onboarding and continuous training.

Posted by Javier García Guardiola

Mar 27 2018

Last updated Apr 18 2019

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