A Study of Gamification in Employee Training in the IT Industry with Reference to AMO Theory

Abstract

Employee training and learning is an important aspect of Human Resource Development in any
organization. It has larger role and is more important in Information Technology industry because IT
industry requires continuous improvement in the skills of the employees. Various IT organizations
have tried to implement gamification in employee learning systems. The aim of applying gamification
in learning system is to make learning more rewarding and continuous. This paper studies the
gamification effect on employee learning and performance through the AMO theory. The performance
of employee can be measured by applying the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) theory
(Appelbaum, Bailey, Berg & Kalleberg, 2000). This theory is broadly applied in HRM performance
and the theory explains that performance of an employee in an organization is dependent on HR
practices. As a part of this study, a research was carried out on IT employees of a company. A
question answer based survey has been done to analyze the effect of gamification in employee training
on employee motivation, opportunity available to employees and their ability. This research paper
applies AMO theory differently with gamification by assuming that employee AMO will increase the
performance. It is based on a set of questionnaire and analysis of the responses through SPSS.