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International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics

AHFE 2019: Advances in Social and Occupational Ergonomics pp 3–14Cite as

Gamifying Onboarding: How to Increase Both Engagement and Integration of New Employees

Part of the Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing book series (AISC,volume 970)

Abstract

New employees are supposed to quickly understand their tasks, internal processes and familiarize with colleagues. This process is called “onboarding” and is still mainly realized by organizational methods from human resource management, such as introductory events or special employee sessions. Software tools and especially mobile applications are an innovative means to support provide onboarding processes in a modern, even remote, way. In this paper we analyze how the use of gamification can enhance onboarding processes. Firstly, we describe a mobile onboarding application specifically developed for the young, technically literate generations Y and Z, who are just about to start their career. Secondly, we report on a study with 98 students and young employees. We found that participants enjoyed the gamified application. They especially appreciated the feature “Team Bingo” which facilitates social integration and teambuilding. Based on the OCEAN personality model (“Big Five”), the personality traits agreeableness and openness revealed significant correlations with a preference for the gamified onboarding application.

Keywords

  • Onboarding
  • Gamification
  • Human resource management
  • Human factors
  • Human-systems integration

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Acknowledgements

This research was enabled by a co-operation between the Affective & Cognitive Institute of Offenburg University and the Haufe Group. The onboarding app and the gamification features were implemented in the Haufe Corporations & Public Sector business unit under the supervision of Christian Kempter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Offenburg University Affective & Cognitive Institute (ACI), Badstr. 24, 77652, Offenburg, Germany

    Louisa Heimburger, Lea Buchweitz, Ruben Gouveia & Oliver Korn

Authors
  1. Louisa Heimburger
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  2. Lea Buchweitz
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  3. Ruben Gouveia
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  4. Oliver Korn
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Oliver Korn .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands

    Prof. Richard H.M. Goossens

  2. Okayama University, Okayama, Japan

    Atsuo Murata

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Heimburger, L., Buchweitz, L., Gouveia, R., Korn, O. (2020). Gamifying Onboarding: How to Increase Both Engagement and Integration of New Employees. In: Goossens, R., Murata, A. (eds) Advances in Social and Occupational Ergonomics. AHFE 2019. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 970. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20145-6_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20145-6_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-20144-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-20145-6

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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