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Not sure how I feel about the product itself. Giving "karma" to your coworkers and having a leaderboard feels a bit Black Mirror Nosedive-esque https://en.wiki

by rlt 7y ago

Not sure how I feel about the product itself. Giving "karma" to your coworkers and having a leaderboard feels a bit Black Mirror Nosedive-esque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive_(Black_Mirror) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive_(Black_Mirror) Are these kinds of things actually good for corporate culture?

danpalmer 7y ago
I think this is really risky. Some companies have the concept of peer-awarded bonuses, and these can work sometimes, but they often just create a "game" and a whole load of hidden politics. I would suggest that most companies should be very careful about introducing peer bonuses, let alone something like this. I would also suggest that much of the benefits of this product (increased recognition) could come from a combination of: thumbs-up or similar reactions to Slack messages, a channel to call out nice things people did (we have #values where we call out people living our company values), and a space for these deeds to be recognised such as at company all-hands meetings (we have a "thank yous and well dones" section in ours each week).
steve19 7y ago
As a manager I find it horrifying. At its core it is the gamification of office politics. And must surely lead to groupthink and conformity. The consequences of disagreeing might be at the end of the quarter a manager is looking at your low score and wondering if you should be cut. Any company looking to adopt this should only do so after carefully looking at high quality peer reviewed studies on the outcomes of this kind of social credit system.
- brodo 7y ago
  Exactly. I bet there will be ‘upvote cartels’ where people agree to upvote each other and downvote everyone else to get ahead. A game theoretic analysis of this would be interesting.
  - amelius 7y ago
    Reminds me of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_assessment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_assessment
GrumpyNl 7y ago
They introduced truqu at work. Don't know what to think about that either. We need to give 12 likes over 3 months.
forgone 7y ago
almost as bad as peer reviews

by rlt 7y ago

danpalmer 7y ago

I think this is really risky. Some companies have the concept of peer-awarded bonuses, and these can work sometimes, but they often just create a "game" and a whole load of hidden politics. I would suggest that most companies should be very careful about introducing peer bonuses, let alone something like this. I would also suggest that much of the benefits of this product (increased recognition) could come from a combination of: thumbs-up or similar reactions to Slack messages, a channel to call out nice things people did (we have #values where we call out people living our company values), and a space for these deeds to be recognised such as at company all-hands meetings (we have a "thank yous and well dones" section in ours each week).

steve19 7y ago

As a manager I find it horrifying. At its core it is the gamification of office politics. And must surely lead to groupthink and conformity. The consequences of disagreeing might be at the end of the quarter a manager is looking at your low score and wondering if you should be cut. Any company looking to adopt this should only do so after carefully looking at high quality peer reviewed studies on the outcomes of this kind of social credit system.

brodo 7y ago
Exactly. I bet there will be ‘upvote cartels’ where people agree to upvote each other and downvote everyone else to get ahead. A game theoretic analysis of this would be interesting.
- amelius 7y ago
  Reminds me of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_assessment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_assessment

GrumpyNl 7y ago

They introduced truqu at work. Don't know what to think about that either. We need to give 12 likes over 3 months.

forgone 7y ago

almost as bad as peer reviews