Gamifying Bob onboarding: Queue the Bob-Olympics

Earlier in 2021, my innovation-led design and marketing agency, DIJGTAL, began the journey of setting up our team on Bob (full disclosure, I don’t own DIJGTAL, I have the pleasure of working for them ☺️). It wasn’t long into the process that our leader of the integration—Growth and Ventures Director, Donna White, an HR/Talent veteran of 15 plus years—figured out a pretty ingenious way to onboard our entire team at the same time. 

DIJGTAL holds offices in Sydney, Vancouver, and Los Angeles (also soon to be opening a new office in Dubai, but that’s a conversation for another time ?). Donna discovered Bob after researching a TONNE of different options and decided they were the best fit. Donna stated, “I’ve worked in tech for a long time. One of the main things I looked for was a modern platform that wasn’t wrapped up in legacy code. Being able to feedback on features and having that feedback actioned was pretty key for me.”

Donna was working with Bob on getting everything in place when an idea dawned on her, “I could see the tidal wave of work coming towards me if I tried to set up our 28 plus team members at the same time. It was going to take me months in between my other tasks to finish, so I stepped back and thought, how can I work smarter, not harder? That’s when I thought up the Bob-Olympics. I knew I could create a fun set of games to not only get everyone onboarded but also get them excited to use Bob and continue using it.”

Get a bunch of team members to set themselves up on Bob, our brand new HR platform, with all of their important information 

PLUS

Teach said team members how to use Bob, understand its capabilities, and see how it makes their lives easier in a fast and effective way

PLUS

Keep our team members engaged to continue using Bob well after the Bob-Olympics have finished

’Twas a crisp Aussie September spring morn when the “Bob-Olympics” opening ceremony commenced. Donna knew the fresh faces of DIJGTAL weren’t afraid of some friendly competition, so it wasn’t hard to find a fun way to tap into that vein and get them excited. 

The roll-out

We dropped a game each week for three weeks and started announcing winners in the second week. Every game was made up of a combination of easy and difficult tasks designed to: 

• Empower the team to learn about Bob and how to use it through self- discovery
• Accommodate everyone’s workloads and different time zones, ensuring they all had a fair chance at winning

The pre Bob-Olympic workout

Two weeks prior to the games, we sent the DIJGTAL team a few countdown-like emails informing them about the introduction of Bob and the upcoming games, as well as the awesome prizes up for grabs.

Bob-Olympics: Game 1

The team received an email with 12 tasks they each needed to complete, along with the rules of engagement. Tasks included: 

• Updating their profile
• Adding in hobbies
• Posting their first ‘Kudos’ on the platform 
• Setting up out-of-office integration with Slack and Google calendar

The medal ceremony for game 1

The gold, silver, and bronze places were awarded to the three team members who completed their tasks first, and boy was it razor close! There were some contestations and some small tears, but we were able to move on and be a happy family again … until game two.

Bob-Olympics: Game 2

A freshly baked set of 13 new tasks came out of the oven and was served up to the waiting hands of the DIJGTAL team. Action items included: 

• Setting up the remainder of the personal profile by completing the financial and identification sections
• Reviewing company info and providing feedback
• Playing with the social functions like wishing team members a happy birthday and running a poll

This time, having learned from game one, everyone developed a better strategy to tackle the second game and come out on top. When it came time for the second medal ceremony, we announced a new set of winners. The race was on for the final game.

Bob-Olympics: Game 3

In the last of DIJGTAL’s trilogy of games, a final five tasks were assigned to the team members. Off they ran to finish, and finish strong, they did. Tasks in the third game included:

• Setting up SMART goals
• Finding out who in the team had the same hobbies
• Choosing a mentor in the team to learn new skills from 
• Posting a series of team shout-outs with specific items included

The third medal ceremony crowned the last three winners, who joyfully collected their prizes.

Bob-Olympics: The closing ceremony

To conclude the games, we held a closing ceremony. Donna delivered a final wrap-up to the team and thanked everyone for their participation. 

The outcome

The Bob-Olympics were incredibly successful for us at DIJGTAL. Every team member got involved in the games, making it the perfect introduction to a platform we knew nothing about. As a testament to the games’ success, we experienced a 100 percent uptake: Bob has now become a staple in DIJGTAL’s daily internal communications:

• The Shoutouts, Kudos, and general sharing of interesting and funny content is prevalent every day
• The backend integrations with DIJGTAL’s other systems provide transparency on who’s out of office, on leave, or out sick 
• DIJGTAL’s yearly reviews were conducted for the first time via Bob, and the entire process was as smooth as a silk sheet—if you’ve ever felt one, you’d know it’s glorious

For Donna, the investment of 3-4 hours in creating and managing the games saved 30 plus hours of onboarding and training. Win-win! Each team member also received a 15-minute walk-through with her to go over anything else they wanted to know. 

“Bob is such an intuitive platform, so for the DIJGTAL team, it was super easy to navigate. There really wasn’t much more I needed to train them on to get them fully onboarded once the games were done,” Donna stated.

The new challenge

Donna needs to find a fun way for all DIJGTAL newbies to get onboarded with Bob. If there’s anyone out there reading this that can think of a way to gamify Bob for new recruits, we at DIJGTAL are open to suggestions!

If you’re interested in learning more about DIJGTAL and whether we can help your business with design or marketing, visit our website today.