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Gamification is a new form of employee abuse that people haven't yet recognized as abuse. It's only a matter of time before we all acknowledge it and ban its us

Gamification is a new form of employee abuse that people haven't yet recognized as abuse. It's only a matter of time before we all acknowledge it and ban its use in a work setting.

vvilliam0 8y ago
Unfortunately I don't foresee it being recognized or fought against. Especially in high turnover work forces such as ride sharing and "part time" low-income jobs. The gamification may engage the employees for just enough time to provide more profit than the turnover would cost.
- ppeetteerr 8y ago
  Coal mines have safety regulations where once they did not. The same is true of logging, construction, manufacturing, child labor, etc. These are safety regulations, which are not the same. It took over 100 years to put those in place. I hope we'll see gamification for the evil that it is in less time than that.
microcolonel 8y ago
God forbid we measure employees on their ability to perform the duties of their job, and prevent middle managers from making the competition about who will stroke their egos the most.
mkirklions 8y ago
I have a hard time understanding why employees can't figure this out. Maybe for children who don't know of future opportunities and what job expectations are, but anyone with a past job can easily compare. Also, those 'rewards' that make noises and tell you 'GREAT JOB', get old. Seeing 10 unread notifications on facebook does not get me to click like it used to. The concern is that a simple 'ban it', is a dangerously simple approach.
clairity 8y ago
please back up such a bold declaration with some rationale. any tool can be taken too far and become abusive, but you've made no attempt to make that connection. humans are competitive (and also cooperative). we like to know how we are doing, and gamification facilitates that while also relieving boredom from an otherwise tedious task (something i do often just for myself).
- rchaud 8y ago
  > humans are competitive (and also cooperative). we like to know how we are doing, and gamification facilitates that That was already known via driver ratings. No one considered that "gamification" because it's a basic KPI. The "lab rat" aspect of this comes into play with some computer-generated BS "challenge" like "“Complete 34 rides between the hours of 5am on Monday and 5am on Sunday to receive a $63 bonus.” In videogames, this is called "grinding", aka gaining experience points doing tedious, repetitive tasks, in order to proceed to the next experience level. The difference is, video game players aren't doing something that requires the same level of attention and duty of care as a car driver.
  - clairity 8y ago
    see, that's why i asked for details. your last point about safety is an interesting wrinkle to consider. but i view your example (a $63 bonus for 34 rides) to be more an incentive than a gamification because it involves real money, not simply "meaningless" points. ratings are more akin to gamification in my view because (1) they're not directly tied to an incentive, and (2) it takes advantage of our human nature of wanting to do well, especially when it involves how other people view us.
- ppeetteerr 8y ago
  Would you be against your employer rewarding you with an IV injection of dopamine? I know this is a bit of a stretch but bare with me. Rewarding someone with gamification, either audibly or visually, or thought other gamification systems releases dopamine in the system. The medium of communication is different but the effect it the same: is a synthetic boost of dopamine and it's similar to injecting it directly into the body, albeit to a lesser degree.

Gamification is a new form of employee abuse that people haven't yet recognized as abuse. It's only a matter of time before we all acknowledge it and ban its use in a work setting.

vvilliam0 8y ago

Unfortunately I don't foresee it being recognized or fought against. Especially in high turnover work forces such as ride sharing and "part time" low-income jobs. The gamification may engage the employees for just enough time to provide more profit than the turnover would cost.

ppeetteerr 8y ago
Coal mines have safety regulations where once they did not. The same is true of logging, construction, manufacturing, child labor, etc. These are safety regulations, which are not the same. It took over 100 years to put those in place. I hope we'll see gamification for the evil that it is in less time than that.

microcolonel 8y ago

God forbid we measure employees on their ability to perform the duties of their job, and prevent middle managers from making the competition about who will stroke their egos the most.

mkirklions 8y ago

I have a hard time understanding why employees can't figure this out. Maybe for children who don't know of future opportunities and what job expectations are, but anyone with a past job can easily compare. Also, those 'rewards' that make noises and tell you 'GREAT JOB', get old. Seeing 10 unread notifications on facebook does not get me to click like it used to. The concern is that a simple 'ban it', is a dangerously simple approach.

clairity 8y ago

please back up such a bold declaration with some rationale. any tool can be taken too far and become abusive, but you've made no attempt to make that connection. humans are competitive (and also cooperative). we like to know how we are doing, and gamification facilitates that while also relieving boredom from an otherwise tedious task (something i do often just for myself).

rchaud 8y ago
> humans are competitive (and also cooperative). we like to know how we are doing, and gamification facilitates that That was already known via driver ratings. No one considered that "gamification" because it's a basic KPI. The "lab rat" aspect of this comes into play with some computer-generated BS "challenge" like "“Complete 34 rides between the hours of 5am on Monday and 5am on Sunday to receive a $63 bonus.” In videogames, this is called "grinding", aka gaining experience points doing tedious, repetitive tasks, in order to proceed to the next experience level. The difference is, video game players aren't doing something that requires the same level of attention and duty of care as a car driver.
- clairity 8y ago
  see, that's why i asked for details. your last point about safety is an interesting wrinkle to consider. but i view your example (a $63 bonus for 34 rides) to be more an incentive than a gamification because it involves real money, not simply "meaningless" points. ratings are more akin to gamification in my view because (1) they're not directly tied to an incentive, and (2) it takes advantage of our human nature of wanting to do well, especially when it involves how other people view us.
ppeetteerr 8y ago
Would you be against your employer rewarding you with an IV injection of dopamine? I know this is a bit of a stretch but bare with me. Rewarding someone with gamification, either audibly or visually, or thought other gamification systems releases dopamine in the system. The medium of communication is different but the effect it the same: is a synthetic boost of dopamine and it's similar to injecting it directly into the body, albeit to a lesser degree.