Getting people to want to learn, not just to complete training, is one of HR's biggest challenges, especially when training is voluntary. In this episode of Jugando en Serio (in Spanish), Beatriz Olmeda and Cecilia González, training and HR specialists at TotalEnergies, explain how gamification, simulations and immersive experiences have changed their workforce's relationship with learning.
Innovation in training is part of the culture
At TotalEnergies, a pioneering spirit is one of the company's values, and every year the team looks for new methods to make training more engaging and useful. Gamification fits because it offers a more immersive experience that reinforces learning without the extra effort of memorizing. The idea gained momentum after the pandemic: they wanted a more hybrid, flexible model where everyone could progress when, how and where they wanted.
The first gamified initiative involved a group of managers who had just completed in-person training to act as «manager coaches». They followed it up with a video game on how to give feedback, with a leaderboard and a small prize.
We set up a leaderboard and a small prize to motivate people, word spread and everyone took part. Afterwards, people who hadn't even been on that course came to ask us to activate the video game that everyone in the office was saying was cool.
Learner engagement in voluntary training: three days to choose
Under the Better Together project, employees drive their own career path. Everyone, in every country, has three days of voluntary training to choose according to their interests and where they want to grow; each year they define their needs with their manager during the performance review. According to the guests, those three days are exceeded by far every year. The two days of mandatory training, on company projects or legal topics, are a harder sell.
But mandatory training can be engaging too. For an international project on organizational culture, the whole workforce was invited to sessions of around four hours built around an in-person serious game with physical dice. The first reaction was dread, but word soon spread that it was fun. Mixing departments and business lines created synergies: people who met there now have coffee together.
Quiz games, simulators and role play
For Training Day, with offices spread across Spain and many people working remotely, they ran an in-person version of a popular TV quiz game in Madrid and an online version, built by the team itself with an authoring tool, so everyone could take part. Along the way, they slipped a mandatory, rather dull strategy course into the game.
The feedback simulator carried over into daily work: at TotalEnergies, managers hold regular one-to-ones with their teams, and that's where they apply what they practiced. After some courses they also use role plays to consolidate learning: playing manager and employee in a meeting or a difficult feedback conversation.
What the data says: better ratings and less absenteeism
Every employee rates their training on a platform, and managers assess its effectiveness and on-the-job applicability each year. Based on that data, gamified training, online or in person, scores considerably better than the classic PowerPoint session in a meeting room.
Part of the improvement comes from flexibility: during a consultation period, people confirm whether they're still interested in what they requested, and choose when to train, because absenteeism sometimes came from scheduling at the worst possible moment. And word of mouth does the rest: an internal video of colleagues talking about courses they enjoyed triggered requests the following week.
We've also cut training absenteeism considerably, by more than 30% over the last two years. And honestly, gamification almost works by itself: it creates a pull effect.
Escape rooms, team building and one piece of advice
TotalEnergies advertises vacancies internally before looking outside, and for one internal selection process it took candidates to an escape room without telling them anything beforehand. That way they behave naturally, and you can see who investigates, who analyzes, who takes the lead and how they work as a team. At its annual outdoor team building, with 400 people this year, the teams were reshuffled for some challenges to mix strangers and make everyone adapt to the pace of the slowest.
Their advice for anyone thinking about gamification? Set a goal, don't be afraid of success, and apply learning by doing: look at the results and fix whatever isn't working. Their two-word summary of the impact: engagement and continuous improvement.
