To motivate its employees to perform better, the corporation Amazon uses a new trick. The employees are casually playing a video game, in which they work. The gamification of work resembles an MMO with a lot of grind. This is reported by the Washington Post.
The giant corporation Amazon has been repeatedly criticized in recent months and years for poor working conditions for employees. Now there was an article in the Washington Post about “gamification” at Amazon – how daily work can be enhanced by progressing in a kind of video game. But is this really good and helpful?
This is how the “games” work: Essentially, employees do their tasks as usual. They package parcels to be shipped. Depending on how effective they are at work (for example, the packages processed per hour), this is registered by the game and converted into points. Depending on performance, there are different medals or achievements.
Employees can compete against each other: The games are designed so that employees can “play” against each other or departments. By the way, there is no mandatory participation in these games. Those who do not want to participate do not have to.
Many points bring bonuses: Those who work particularly effectively and can thus score many points can actually receive some bonuses. For example, one can exchange the points earned for merchandise, providing a real incentive to increase performance.
Screenshots or other proof from the games are not available. Amazon publishes nothing on this, and employees are not allowed to film or photograph at the workplace.
There are concerns and worries: However, not everything about this solution is good, and there are numerous concerns. It has been noted that employees quickly become demotivated and frustrated when they repeatedly hear about being the losers of these games.
These games could also be a way for Amazon to secretly increase the required performance. If, for example, currently 200 packages per hour earn a gold medal, the company executives could slowly raise this to 250 or even 300.
Whether the “gamification” at Amazon is a curse, a blessing, or something in between will probably only become clear in the coming months. An improvement in working conditions would be desirable in any case.
What do you think about this? Is it a cool action to spice up monotonous work with special incentives? Or is it just a veiled method to exploit employees more effectively?
Amazon is currently also developing a real game:
