“Duolingo has 31 million daily active users.
Most spend just 5 minutes a day.
So how does a language app keep people more engaged than most companies keep their employees?
Think about it. Your team barely responds to employee engagement surveys. Meanwhile, people are opening Duolingo during their commute, lunch break, and before bed.
The difference isn’t the content, but how the experience feels.
Duolingo gives you instant feedback.
You finish a lesson, you see progress. You hit a streak, you get a badge. Small wins that stack up into something bigger.
Now compare that to most workplaces.
You finish a project. Crickets. You solve a problem. No one notices. You show up consistently for months. Maybe someone mentions it in your annual review.
Here’s what HR teams miss:
👉 Engagement isn’t built through quarterly town halls or annual offsites. It’s built through daily micro-moments that make people feel like their effort matters.
Duolingo figured this out. Every interaction is designed to give you a reason to come back tomorrow.
➜ A streak you don’t want to break.
➜ A leaderboard that shows you’re improving.
➜ A quick dopamine hit that says “”you did something today.””
Indian workplaces need this more than anyone.
We’re contacting employees outside work hours 90% of the time. We’re running back-to-back meetings that drain energy instead of building it.
And then we wonder why 49% of people are actively looking for their next job.
The solution isn’t more engagement initiatives. It’s rethinking what engagement actually feels like day to day.
At ExtraMile Play, we apply this thinking to teams.
Quick games that create those micro-wins. Small rituals that build streaks of connection. Moments that make people feel seen without waiting for the next town hall.
Because Duolingo proved something important:
📢 People don’t need grand gestures to stay engaged.
They need small, consistent reasons to care.
Would your employees be more motivated by another company-wide email or a 5-minute game that actually makes them feel something?”