onboarding

The Importance of Offboarding

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Offboarding 2 e1639665586873 The Importance of Offboarding

A million years ago (well 2013) I did a talk at my first big conference – Gamification World Congress ’13. I chose to talk about a potential framework for a gamified career path, using a game board, constant feedback loops etc.

Career 2.0 Gamification of a Career – GWC Talk

It was a decent talk and the concept was, if I do say so myself, a bit ahead of its time. That said, I do see elements of it in the real world now, which is awesome!

I spent time then and have done a lot since, talking about the importance of onboarding new members of staff. However, I know now, that I missed a very important part of the employee journey – Offboarding

I did a quick search for a definition of offboarding and found this one that I felt was interesting.

Offboarding is the process that leads to the formal separation between an employee and a company through resignation, termination, or retirement. It encompasses all the decisions and processes that take place when an employee leaves.

  • Transferring that employee’s job responsibilities
  • Deactivating access rights and passwords
  • Turning in equipment
  • Conducting exit interviews to gather feedback

https://www.bamboohr.com/blog/offboarding-why-it-matters/

Now. This seems very company centric, as depressingly ever, ignoring the employee.

There are many reasons employees leave a company, but here I am going to discuss it from the point of view that the employee has made a decision to leave, not the company has made the decision for them.

As much as the first impression an employee gets of a company is important, their last impression is equally – if not more – important. If you consider that most people stay in jobs for just 5 years these days, your employees will spend less time employed by you than not,? So why do employers seem to take so little interest in that.

Advocates, not Enemies

Offboarding should not just encompass what the company needs, it should also consider what the employee might need. It is not time for the company to be childish and sulk because an employee has betrayed them and decided to leave.

If they feel the company was supportive and happy for them, celebrating with them and helping them to be excited about the new opportunities – how great do you think that employee will feel about the company they are leaving?

That may not seem important, but imagine the number of years that employee will go from place to place saying “You know what, company x treated me amazingly, I totally recommend them to you!” or “Oh, the place I used to work for did that, I’ll hook you up”.

So when you are building your employee roadmaps, maybe put some effort into a structured offboarding, that not just looks at closing down the employees technical relationship with your company, but also the emotional relationship they have with the company. That’s the relationship that they will likely remember far longer than anything they did in the company. Use it as an opportunity for honest conversations, understanding and offering support that may help them move into their next job.

I suppose I am saying, don’t be an arse about it all.  Employee loyalty should far outlast their employment!

Learning From Games: Onboarding and Mario

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I’ve probably mentioned this in the past, but Super Mario (for me) has one of the best on-boarding experiences of any game I’ve ever played.

But let’s start at the beginning.

What’s On-boarding?

On-boarding, in this context, is the way the game introduces the player to the rules of play. It is how the game teaches you what to do, without having to rely on pages and pages of text in a manual.

Mario, designed by games design genius Shigeru Miyamoto, was one of the first games I played where the instructions consisted of only the most basic information (what button to press to do what).

Level 1

The first level is a veritable masterclass in level design, onboarding and the concept of flow in game design! What I never realised was that he created the first level (World 1-1) last! He wanted the level to show the player all of the basic skills they will need to play the game. It starts with the player simply walking. Then they see Goomba and realise that if they don’t jump over it, they die. If they mistime the jump, they may jump on it and kill it. Then there are a few blocks. Some are flashing with question marks. This encourages the player to be curious, so the may jump at them. The first one gives them a coin, which is satisfying, so they do it to the next one. This one drops a mushroom. Now, they have just discovered the mushrooms are bad, so they may run away, but if this one hits them, they become big Mario. Again, a satisfying experience.

In the first few seconds of the game (in fact in the first screen), they have learned almost all of the basic skills they will need to play further. As the level progresses, a few more are taught – such as the B-Dash to get over larger gaps.

Pacing

The first level is very carefully designed so that it is not too hard. It is, obviously, the simples in terms of level design, but it introduces elements of gameplay at a steady pace. In fact, that is the secret to the whole of Super Mario, the pacing. Every new element is introduced only when the player is ready for it. It never gets too hard too quickly, the core principle of how we use Flow in game design ( and of course gamification).

Gamification

We can learn an awful lot from playing the first level of Super Mario. In a gamification context, on-boarding is all about taking it slow and introducing the user to concepts at a steady pace. Then, as you need to challenge them more, be sure they have already been introduced to the skills needed. It is also fine to leave things for them to discover and even to spike the challenge level a little, as long as they feel safe to fail a few times.

More In The Learning From Games Series

 

Using familiarity and Nostalgia to Boost Gamification and On-Boarding

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If there is one thing that Pokemon Go has shown me, it’s that nostalgia is a powerful tool in onboarding. The main reason I played it to start with? I used to love Pokemon – just like everyone else I knew. I was around 16 or 17 when it first appeared on the Gameboy in the UK and I immediately fell in love with it. This is a familiar story for a couple of generations as the game has managed to reinvent itself (or at least add more Pokemons) every couple of years since then!

When I heard about Pokemon go, it was not the clever use of augmented reality that attracted me, it was the chance to be Ash and go and “Catch ‘em all” that got me. Once I played it, it felt familiar. The Pokemon matched to those found in my first encounters with the game. Pikachu was there, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Pidgey etc. I felt comfortable, as if I was in the cartoon I used to watch back in the day.

Familiar Themes

It is that instant familiarity that gives Pokemon Go its instant appeal to many players and it is something we should make more use of in Gamification.  If you can find a theme that feels familiar to the players, you can onboard them much faster. It doesn’t seem so alien if they instantly go “Oh I used to love that when I was younger” or “This is just like XY or Z that I love / use already”. I have said before; gamification is a strong tool for lowering the barrier to entry when trying to get across new concepts.

Familiar UI and UX

It’s not just themes that can help make something feel familiar, everything around the user experience can benefit. Why do you think most FPS games have the same control scheme? It’s not just because years of trial and error have provided “the perfect scheme”, it’s because the designers don’t want to force new players into learning something totally new. They want new players to get straight into the game and learn the cool things that the game has to offer beyond every other game.

The same goes for where the inventory is shown, mini maps, health and more. Most games have them in vaguely the same position on screen.

The Lesson

If you can create a theme that triggers feelings of nostalgia and familiarity in players, then you will accelerate your on-boarding.

If you can add to that a familiar user experience, drawing on other popular apps or experiences, then you can help to not only accelerate the on-boarding / enrolment but also prolong the engagement afterwards (the Enthuse / Engage phase of the EEEE User Journey)

EEEE Journey Framework

Being Kind When Discussing Gamification

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I talk to people about gamification quite a lot! The conversation usually starts with a little curiosity, then some scepticism and if I have done well, enthusiasm.

One thing that happens in probably 9 out of 10 conversations is a little section I like to call “No, it’s not about making games”. You all know this one. The person you are talking to suddenly has a moment of revelation as the think they have understood what you are talking about and say “Oh yeah. Minecraft!”.

Now.  There are a couple of ways to handle this. The first is to stop them in their tracks and say; “No, my friend, you are barking up the wrong pixellated tree. It is about taking the ideas and mechanics from games like Minecraft and using them in non game situations.”

This approach usually leads to them looking deflated and no longer interested. You pissed on their parade.

The second approach is to say; “There is certainly a huge amount of benefit that has been seen using games like that in education, and there are definitely loads of uses for that kind of approach.” Then let them talk about how their kids love it and it shows them all kinds of great life skills. At an appropriate moment, you then address what gamification actually is and why that has benefit in just the same way as a full game. “Games are such great tools, but it is very hard and extremely costly to create a game that is great. But, you can make use of a lot of the ideas that make games like Minecraft so interesting an engaging, without needing to create full blown games.”

Then lead the conversation towards gamification!

The point is, be kind. When the conversation turns to games let it happen, but be confident enough to drive it towards gamification (if that is the best solution) without having to make them feel stupid!

You are the expert, not them. It is like going to learn a martial art and the first thing that happens is a big guy beats the crap out of you and says “You are rubbish”. You are not likely to come back the next week!

You could call it Onboarding!

OnBoarding, Tutorials and Learning by Doing

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For me one of the most effective uses of gamification that I see in education (at the moment) is the inclusion of things like onboarding and tutorials.

When I was young, games came with manuals that you could knock a donkey out with. They had all the instructions, keyboard overlays, back stories and more! It could take a day just to read them, let alone start to play.  Who can forget the microscopic space fleet that came with the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?

I sometimes wonder if a lot of this was acceptable to us because of how long games took to load. Ah, the joyous sounds of the Commodore 64 loading – not to mention the amazing music you used to get (Ocean Loader v4 being my favourite – sad I know!).

These days you don’t get any of that. Now all you get is a single page that explains the story in a short paragraph and the buttons you need to play. The rest is handled by an onboarding process.

Onboarding in this case refers to the step by step “hand holding” that takes place. The game teaches you how to play, by letting you practice in a controlled and safe manner. Learning how to move first, then how to shoot, and then jump etc. Once you have nailed the basics, you are then equipped to play the real game. Often more complex games will have extra tutorials to learn the more difficult aspects of the game as well, giving you the chance to learn at your own pace, whilst still being able to play.

Not only is this a more enjoyable way to learn how to play the game, it allows for several things. First, it allows the story to be told from the beginning, setting you up for the main game. It also helps you remember more. Many people learn faster when they are actually doing the thing they are learning. Also there is a greater sense of achievement from learning these actions as you do them rather than just reading about them.

In education this can be replicated with ease. Rather than asking children to read about their numbers, teachers have them count coins or blocks. They can see and feel the counting and the maths.  There are serious games, such as Microsoft’s “Ribbon Hero 2” which make great use of this hand holding and learning by doing approach. This is a game that was produced to help people learn Microsoft office. The entire game is one on-boarding tutorial, as you help Clippy find his way through time back to the present day. Every level has you using functionality from the Office product – learning by doing.

Breaking things up and having people learn by doing is definitely one of the greatest lessons I can see from video games for us to use. You don’t need points and badges for it to work. People are motivated by the experience if it is built well.  They get continuous feelings of achievement as they learn and master new skills. However, everything has to be meaningful and relevant. There is no point just throwing animations are a learning “game” that the learner has no control over, or giving them choices that have no meaning or effect on the rest of the experience. The will not thank you for making a five minute tutorial into a thirty minute yawn fest that they can’t skip!

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