Airline Cargo

The dis-engaged employee

At the core of it, technology is driven by the need to better the human condition - be it at the office or outside of it. While technology was intended to solve problems, it also has the flip side of generating new ones that are not desired under certain circumstances. With social media and smart phone combination time slicing the waking hours of our life, organizations are feeling the heat of the "dis-engaged employee" – the employee who finds it difficult to reengage with office tools that are plain and boring, compared to the cool apps and tools that mean fun. Reduced productivity, increasing cost of quality, and increased exposure to business risks are some of the serious concerns facing the organization. Managers have been scouting for solutions that could address the issue with the least level of disruption to business.

​Enter Enterprise Gamification​

According to Wikipedia, Gamification is the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts.

Essentially, gamification is about keeping employees engaged and motivated by appealing to the inherent human nature that desires having fun, achievement and satisfaction while exercising their daily duties at work. The design principles of gamification are aimed to keep the employee focused on the tasks at hand such that they are engaged and value the rewards that keeps them motivated to perform better. An engaged workforce can eventually lead to improved productivity, happy customers and repeat business driving up revenue.

Challenges

Gamification is a radical departure from what organizations consider to be "normal" organization setups and policies, where there are rules of engagement around almost all aspects of official life. Office policies, data privacy requirements and sometimes even labor laws may restrict or make the design of enterprise gaming a real challenge.

Even though enterprise gamification tries to connect rewards with the fun in achieving them, designers should also be mindful not to disrupt organization structures radically for achieving gamification objectives. For example, the data collected on each employee for reward points should be treated with utmost sensitivity as that may be used as a yardstick for promotions, revision of pay scale etc. Ensuring transparency is absolutely essential and devising strategies that ensure participation of employees is important for success of enterprise gamification.

Gamification possibilities in air cargo industry

There are multiple possibilities for gamification in any industry and air cargo industry is no different. Gamification works best in areas of customer facing business processes that deal with customers where the outcome can be measured against expectations and feed into the gaming logic for points or rewards. Goods acceptance, goods delivery and documentation are some of the areas where a gamified cargo system can build gaming logic that empower the employee to be more productive and competing with peers for rewards.

iCargo, IBS's cargo management solution is a rules based business system that combines business logic and data with complete coverage of airline cargo business processes such as sales, terminal handling, revenue accounting etc.

​Below are some of the areas where the iCargo system transforms to a gamified enterprise application for air cargo management.

​Capture and recording of user interaction

The following data can be captured based on the interaction of the user with the system:

1. System flows or tasks that the user is performing most of the time
2. Time that the user spends for completing a particular transaction or business flow
3. Number of transactions the user performed for a particular time period 

The accurate capture of such data enables management to review the performance and award reward points based on it. The data will also help in analysis of performance over a period of time that will revel trends in the way the employees operate and help management to take necessary steps either to improve the business process or upgrade the employee's skills through training.​

​Finding the fastest fingers

Based on the information captured via user interaction, the system can generate real time dashboards and leader boards representing the users' performance against a particular screen transaction. Also system can present this leader board to the user and compare the user against the best performers in the organization (for that particular screen transaction). Badges could be assigned to the user on achievement of a certain milestone. The rewards can be based on the badges achieved. This feature can be attached to various transactions in the system, for example in Air Waybill capture, completing a booking, doing a rate audit etc.

Performance measurement and rewards for completing the transactions on time

The System can identify the best performer on each transaction or business processes areas. The best performer can be decided based the factors such as On-time Completion, Quick Completion, Quality of data, and so on. Different badges can be assigned based on the performance, and the rewards can be based on the badges won. This concept can be extended to teams competing each other and the best performing team could be awarded on a monthly or quarterly basis. 

Display badges to employee profile

Based on the employee achievement the system can suggest badges for the user and that can be displayed in their organization profile.
The examples given above are just the tip of the iceberg of an ocean of opportunities for the organization that is ready to take real steps towards enterprise gamification.