Engaging Contingent Workforce Through Gamification

Businesses are embracing contingent workforces to enhance agility, flexibility, and ability to scale up and down as per the business environment. While employing contingent workers is a strategy that endows benefits, engaging them is a big challenge. In this chapter, we discuss the importance of the contingent workforce in changing business paradigms, the benefits of engaging with them, and challenges faced by organizations in engaging them with special reference to their job characteristics, rewards and recognition, learning and development opportunities, perception of justice, and organizational support. Building on the self-determination theory and work engagement literature, we posit that gamification can 20 be an effective tool to engage contingent workers. We argue that game mechanics, game elements, and game dynamics can create a rewarding environment for learning, performance, and social interaction, thus enhancing engagement of the contingent workforce at work. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.