Structure Helps New Employees Adjust

A new study, conducted by Jamie Guman, Ph.D and Alan Saks, shows a regular change of jobs and careers has become the new world work order. The study is the first to examine links between “on-boarding” tactics and newcomer engagement. It is published in the Journal of Managerial Psychology.

The study suggests that a structured employee orientation for new hires can be beneficial in promoting effective employee engagement but is just a starting point. To be fully engaged, new employees need to be supported by their superiors and colleagues so they can feel “safe” and believe that their work is meaningful.

Many companies are turning to simulation games for new employee orientation. Simulations have new hires encounter real life situations in a risk-free environment so that they will be ready for the challenges ahead of them. Johnson & Johnson’s “Your Future in Nursing” program allows new nurses to face such challenges to prepare them for the nursing world.

Personal engagement at work is a key factor to job success as well as a new employee’s commitment and performance which can in turn affect the company’s productivity and competitiveness.

FULL STORY

Tweet

The People Skills Test for Aspiring MDs

Doctors save lives, but they can sometimes be insufferable know-it-alls who bully nurses and do not listen to patients. Medical schools have traditionally done little to screen out such flawed applicants or to train them to behave better, but that is changing.

The nation’s 134 medical schools have long relied almost entirely on college grades and the standardized Medical College Admission Test to sort through more than 42,000 applicants.

One-on-one interviews are offered but provide poor assessments of a candidate’s social skills because they reflect only one person’s view, often focusing on academic issues and elicit practiced responses to canned questions like “Why do you want to become a doctor?”

Now, at least eight medical schools in the United States are shifting to the admissions equivalent of speed-dating: nine brief interviews that force candidates to show they have the social skills to navigate a health care system in which good communication has become critical.

Sample questions include whether giving patients unproven alternative remedies is ethical, whether pediatricians should support parents who want to circumcise their baby boys and whether insurance co-pays for medical visits are appropriate.

The same approach to improving communications skills is helping nurses prepare for their first jobs in hospitals. An avatar-based simulation called "Your Future in Nursing" showcases the people skills scenarios a nurse will face when leaving nursing school and helps them hone skills and get oriented to hospital-based human interaction in a risk-free environment.

FULL STORY

Tweet

Gamifying Salesforce.com

‘Gamification’ of consumer apps like Foursquare through points, badges, mayorships has become a big thing over the past 18 months. Now US startup IActionable wants to bring game mechanics to the enterprise market too, with an app for leading cloud-based business platform Salesforce.com.

Engage is built to integrate with Salesforce accounts, adding points, challenges, achievements and leader boards to working culture. IActionable says that its platform can: be used to increase productivity, be used as a training tool, help to improve Salesforce adoption amongst new staff by helping them get used to the platform and encouraging old hands to use it to its full potential, help improve performance monitoring, and spur on healthy competition between employees.

Applying game mechanics to work is nothing new – sales teams in businesses around the world have long operated leader boards and rewards schemes to motivate staff. Opinions will vary, but Salesforce.com’s ‘chief scientist’ JP Rangaswami recently spoke about how gamification was the future of the motivation and performance management in the workplace, so expect to see more of this kind of thing in the future.

Watch the video

Tweet

Zynga Gamifies Privacy Policy

Zynga, creators of the wildly popular Facebook game FarmVille, has released their newest game. Only it won't let you grow crops and milk cows, but it will teach you about online privacy.

The new game, PrivacyVille, is a combination of a Zynga privacy tutorial that gives incentives for users to click through it. Players are then rewarded 200 zPoints in RewardVille, Zynga’s online shop.

Companies across the globe have been turning to Gamification for both their internal and external learning and messaging. It is easier for brands’ to get their message across if they speak the language of a new generation, through games.

"As part of our commitment to user privacy we strive to make it easier for players to learn more about the types of information we collect, how it is used and what their choices are for that information," Zynga said in a blog post. Make it a game, with real rewards. PrivacyVille is modeled after CityVille, which Zynga launched in Nov. 2010. Users are required to click through buildings representing policies such as "communications features," "management," "storage," and "email," where Zynga explains its policies for each. The goal appears to get privacy information in front of the user.

FULL STORY

Tweet

Gamification for Recruiting (Part Two)

IBM’s "Smarter Planet" campaign celebrates Big Blue's ambitious efforts to tackle some of the most vexing dilemmas of our era. But IBM is going to have to get a lot smarter if its going to attract the next generation of smarter workers to work there.

After dumping $30 million to build the Watson computer that beat two former "Jeopardy!" champions earlier this year (and far more to promote it), the company lugged its machine to Carnegie Mellon University with the goal -- persuade some of those students to consider a career at IBM. The move was part of a new charm offensive by mature technology companies, including Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co., as they compete for engineering students against sexier start-ups, such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter.

Others are using game-based communications to drive engagement and start the brand conversation. Deloitte's "Virtual Team Challenge" is an employer branding and recruiting program that attracts talent to the accounting/audit career path. This first-ever use of multiplayer virtual worlds for talent. (see New York Times)

The strategy for talent "fit": Sims to differentiate SNI, and attract and engage candidates with greater efficiency and effectiveness. By telling the SNI employer brand story well the Sim delivers 'self-selected' inspired candidates with a clear understanding of your culture. Through integrated assessment instruments you cast a wider net and prioritize who funnels out, with increasing insight into high-quality talent.

Microsoft holds tech confabs at which it demonstrates its newer technologies, such as the Microsoft Kinect motion sensor for gaming. See recent coverage in BusinessWeek and coverage in Forbes.

FULL STORY

Tweet