I built a million-dollar training center before I ever built a game.
I was the HR pro who moved fast, climbed fast, and learned early that most training was designed to check boxes not change behavior. I loved building systems, designing programs, and creating clarity.
But there was always one thing I avoided:
Compliance training.
Not because I didn’t believe in it.
Because it was boring.
If I was bored delivering it, people were definitely bored sitting through it.
So I stopped delivering it.
And I started designing something else.
I was leading HR for an industrial company when we hit a turning point:
Wave after wave of retirements.
New team leaders straight out of high school.
Zero formal leadership training.
Compliance risk everywhere.
We needed a program. But I couldn’t bring myself to drag them through slides or read-aloud policy sessions. They didn’t want to be there and they wouldn’t remember it if they were.
So I built something they couldn’t ignore.
My husband and I went to Marshalls and TJ Maxx on a Saturday night. We bought every bag and lock we could find. We opened a bottle of wine, sat on the living room floor, and built an employment law escape room.
Each bag held a different legal scenario.
Each lock held a puzzle tied to a federal law.
And each team of leaders had to figure out how to escape the training together.
We didn’t just deliver compliance. We delivered dopamine.
In the brain, behavior sticks when it feels good.
It’s called a motivation loop—cue → action → reward → repeat.
You see it in games. You see it in social media. And now, we saw it in HR training.
Once they were moving, solving, guessing, laughing… they didn’t want to stop.
What started as policy became play.
What started as training became a team-building catalyst.
One team leader said, “Wait… you actually created this?”
That’s when I knew we had rewired the experience.
In his book Actionable Gamification, Yu-kai Chou explains that behavior sticks not because of points, badges, or leaderboards but because of emotion, challenge, and ownership.
That’s what our escape room did:
⚙️ Gave people choices
🎯 Made learning a challenge
💬 Created conversation, not just content
They were learning the law, yes.
But they were also building strategic thinking, communication, and confidence.
Midway through one session, a team leader pulled me aside.
They were nervous. Quiet. But they started talking.
They shared something happening on their floor an inappropriate situation that no one had addressed because no one was sure it was “serious enough.”
The escape room gave them language.
It gave them permission.
It gave them responsibility.
We discovered and resolved a real compliance risk that would’ve otherwise stayed hidden.
We don’t need more rules.
We need emotionally sticky experiences that make people care enough to change.
We need systems that:
Hook attention early
Respect people’s time
Treat behavior like a journey
Spark conversation and identity shift, not just checkbox learning
If you want people to remember the training, make them feel something inside it.
Gamification isn’t a trick. It’s not fluff.
It’s the application of what psychology already tells us about how behavior works:
People remember what they feel
People repeat what they enjoy
People commit to what they own
Don’t just teach the rules. Change the behavior.
And if you have to do it with a discount lock and a puzzle bag?
Do it.
Because the most powerful tool in HR isn’t compliance.
It’s curiosity.