Making Gameful Work Work: The Gamification of Strategic Human Resource Management

Abstract

The recent pandemic enforced a massive digitalization in the working world and enabled the widespread utilization of gamification in organizations. Still, gamification in Human resource management (HRM) is rarely integrated into the human resources (HR) strategy and is often done on an operational level. We intend to portray the conceptual evolution of gamification in HRM. Through integrating the basic rationale of gamification design, we systematically utilize three resulting evolutionary gamification levels – structure, process, and dynamic capability – to explain how gamification in HR matures from a beginner level to a master level to contribute to the leverage of strategic potentials in HRM. At a meta-level, we will discuss the consequences of gamified HRM in terms of professionalization, hybridization, and captivation, finally concluding with a radical gamification vision for HRM.