I’m Jay, co-founder & CEO of Shram: a gamified work management tool. Ask me anything!
Jay Gadekar
23 replies
Hey everyone! 👋
My name is Jay and I have been working on a work-management tool with my lean team of five. I was building my firm as an architect and soon faced the hassles of performance evaluations. I also came across a report by Gallup that suggested poor engagement rates at workplaces and it made me go deeper into learning more about this space.
It wasn't long that I realised how inefficient performance mgmt was even at the biggest of companies in the world. I read books like What matters, How Google works, Nudge, Actionable gamification, Drive, amongst many others and it felt that this space needs a fresh perspective on daily work we do as teams. So I spent 4 years learning how to code while dreaming of building Shram one day.
Project mgmt, performance mgmt and employee engagement are seen as three independent industries. And at Shram, we beg to differ. For us they are intertwined and we want Shram to be that fabric that stitches it all together to build truly transparent workplaces of the future.
Anyway, I would love to initiate a discussion on what your thoughts on gamification are, if applied at work. Pros, cons, please share your critique with me here. Tomorrow, we are launching here on PH and we would love to learn more and improve. Thank you! :)
PS: Shram will be available for free for folks on PH until our next launch 3 months later. https://www.producthunt.com/products/shram
Replies
Gaurav Agarwal@gaurav_agarwal24
How do you plan to measure the effectiveness of gamification in enhancing employee engagement and performance? Additionally, what specific gamification techniques or strategies do you think could have the most impact in a workplace setting?
Share
@gaurav_agarwal24
1. Most team members hate coming back to a platform to log in work. So if we could improve that then gamification might be helping
2. This process is also quite tedious so if people are having fun and we could record it as feedback over a survey then that could be another win
3. Shram doesn’t have a leaderboard to discourage unhealthy competition. So if we are able to nudge friendly competition and team work, that’s another effective measure that gamification is working. :)
I think a temporary progress bar that give teammates a sense of progress and then resets periodically would be most useful. That way everyone gets an opportunity to be seen as performing the best amongst their peers.
Do you think Gamification as an idea would have evolution or a 2.0 version? If yes then what would that look like?
@serverlord , I would like to believe that we are building that newer version. Let me explain that better.
In the book Drive, the author explains two types of motivations:
1. Motivation 2.0 that is extrinsic: driven by carrots and sticks; the kind we employed during the industrial era. If you did well you got a prize and if you didn’t, you got punishment.
2. Motivation 3.0 that is intrinsic: driven intrinsically: the kind Google instills instilled in its employees. Here you do work because you enjoy doing it.
Existing employee engagement platforms offer employees coupons or gift cards for logging in work, which is like training rats.
So the next version of gamification should ideally be intrinsic and we are building Shram only on that foundation. There are no coupons or gift cards here, just pure social capital amongst your peers at work. :)
How does Shram combine the 3industries that you spoke about and how will Shram be useful to small businesses?
@karna_nanda
Let’s look at the three industries at play in team productivity:
1. Project mgmt tools help you document your daily work and how it moves the needle for long-term goals. Unfortunately, daily work data is summarised into a report and submitted to the manager during appraisals. So this step becomes optional.
2. Performance mgmt tools help you understand how well your teammates are doing so as the gauge if you should appraise them (or fire them). For this, tedious evaluations are done periodically that both managers and employees hate.
3. Employee engagement incentivises teammates to use the above tools because they are otherwise very boring and tedious. Here, employees are given coupons and gift cards as motivation to use the above tools
These are seen as three independent industries. So as an organisation, you would be expected to buy and use three separate tools! But for us at Shram, they are intertwined. How?
1. Daily work data if collected more responsibly, contains rich information about how well you are doing it.
2. So a lot about each teammates performance can be gauged in real-time by how well they are doing daily tasks. This eliminates overwhelming performance evaluations that are conducted periodically
3. Engagement should ideally be a later stop work management such that everyone finds the experience of using such a tool delightful, instead of motivating teammates with gifts or coupons.
For small businesses, all of this distills down to accountability. So we make logging in daily work rewarding and meaningful so that such work data can point toward each teammate’s accountability in real time. :)
Shram sounds interesting, Jay. Gamification can be fun, but how does Shram ensure it stays focused on productivity and doesn't become a distraction? Are there features to balance the gamification aspect with actual work completion?
@grayson_carter1 Thank you! :)
Yes! If gamification isn’t done meaningfully then users simply will ignore it. For that reason all gamification in Shram is based on actual work done.
1. There is a weekly progress bar each teammate must try and make green by gaining XP. This bar resets to 0 at the end of each week so that competition is avoided and instead everyone has the opportunity to be the best this time
2. You gain XP when the approver of your task marks it as complete and rates your task out of 5. The XP gained is a function of the task rating and its duration. We are soon introducing difficulty as well.
3. The more tasks you do the more XP you gain. Most importantly, quality of work is also accounted for because of ratings provided by the approval process. So the better you perform the more XP you gain
These are simple yet effective ways with which, Shram has been able to make gamification meaningful instead of being a distraction. :)
The Product Folks
Amazing to see Shram's journey over the last few months! What has been the biggest learnings in the work productivity space?
@aditya_mohanty Thank you! :)
We have failed at many and fortunately, succeeded at getting few things right about this space:
1. We started with the idea that work management tools should not look and feel like excel sheets. But, that's not the reason behind employee disengagement at all
2. We revamped the traditional app experience to only realise that a drastic change makes it more difficult to adopt a new tool like Shram. The minimal the deviation from the existing way, the better!
3. Since there are numerous alternatives in this space, even the base expectations users had from the MVP were high. Integrations, advanced features, more flexibility, etc cannot be compromised. Users will always compare you with the best in the world they can access
4. Friction during onboarding led us to believe that we are not solving a problem. But after speaking to more people, we realised that we had not considered user personas involved deeply
5. Workplace gamification if done thoughtfully, just works. Our users love it and it has truly brought joy to their teams
6. Serving user pain-points such as AI passively suggesting ideal task assignees or real-time performance evaluation reports may outweigh complex features that are just nice-to-haves
7. UI matters more than users assume. Anything that makes them feel special is highly rewarded while anything that makes feel dumb faces criticism
Sorry for the long list. There are more but the ones above have been critical to our current approach with which we will be relaunching Shram in the next few weeks. :)
Scoutflo
Launching soon!
What's the primary goal of Shram? To increase logging of work?
@kalpesh_bhalekar1
That's an interesting one! We want to eventually eliminate logging of all work. For that we need to get multiple long shots right. For example:
1. Aggregation of work across all channels
2. Using LLMs to gauge what's done and how well
3. Making this work seamlessly, which seems daunting today!
At present, we want users to log in the work they wish to be recognised for. You may get 10 tasks approved for 1 hour of work resp or just 1 task with 10 hours of work logged in. Your checklists in each task may elaborate on what was done so that reports over-time reflect contributions made accurately. :)
Why my team should use Shram over any other work management tools?
@balaji_bk
If you have tried conventional tools but could not stick with them, Shram could be a game-changer for you! It boosts team engagement with:
1. Instant delight, due to workplace gamification, and
2. Long-term meaning, thanks to our ability to link daily work with performance.
Unlike other tools, Shram is designed to collect rich information not only about what was done but also what type it was and how well it was done. This allows Shram to gauge your performance real-time based on granular work you do daily. With time, this could replace the dreadful evaluations that managers and HR reps engage in and recognise each one of your team member's effort without bias. :)
Gamification of work sounds super fun and interesting!
How will Shram be catering to different teams?
For example - How a Growth team functions is completely different from how and engineering/design team work.
@navreen_d06 Thank you! :)
We believe that regardless of the core-function you serve at work, be is sales, marketing, operations or engineering, the foundation is based on tasks, which are universal building blocks of productivity.
At present, professionals from varied functions note down their tasks in their diaries, to-do apps or more sophisticated work management tools like Asana, ClickUp etc. So we are simply enabling the ability to keep your tasks together on one platform like these alternatives, but with a pleasant caveat!
On Shram, your daily contributions over-time reflect your performance and may be part of your periodic evaluation. So unlike other tools where daily work has little to no impact, on Shram, each contribution you make is recognised and might help with an appraisal as well. :)
Hi Jay. Congrats to you and your team for working on this amazing product.
I have a question: How will you ensure that Shram is not seen as another distraction or chore? For an average employee, how will Shram be different or valuable?
I understand that Shram is gamified, but so is CRED, which seems to have lost its charm.
How will Shram stay relevant in the long term?
Jay and team, I wish you all the best for the launch. May Shram bring the revolution that this sector needs. Congrats once again :)
Hi Jay, it's amazing how far you've come with Shram. In your experience, how sustainable is gamification as a strategy for maintaining long-term employee engagement and performance? Are there any risks of employee burnout over time? How is Shram planning to address them?
Also I wish Shram team, all the best for the launch.
Shram is such an amazing product, Jay! Some quick questions:
1. Does Shram also follow multi-level hierarchial teams or is built with only flat teams in mind?
2. Is there a way to also quantify the impact of gamification? Meaning, if I were to choose Shram over some other tool, is there a way for me to actually see how well did it work out for me?
Gamification at work sounds really interesting! I think the pros are that it could make tasks more engaging and motivating. The key would be designing the game mechanics thoughtfully to drive the right behaviors and outcomes without unintended consequences. I'd be curious to hear more about how Shram is approaching this. What types of game elements are you incorporating and how will you measure their impact on productivity and employee satisfaction? Excited to check out the launch on PH tomorrow and learn more. Best of luck!
Hey Jay! Your journey from architect to CEO of a gamified work management tool is like navigating a complex blueprint to success. Gamification at work can be a game-changer, but it's like finding the perfect balance between fun and productivity - a challenge worth tackling! 🎮🚀
i strongly belive we are building a good evolution or 2.0 version this time