Note: Today’s post is part of our ‘Editor’s Picks’ series in which we highlight recent posts from our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. This article is the second article by Ben Smeland, Senior Software Engineer at Lucas Systems, and continues to explore gamification in the warehouse.
In our first article on using gamification as an employee attraction and retention tool, we shared a short definition and delved a little deeper into two of the three pillars of gamification, personal pride and socialization. In this article, we’ll look at the third pillar, concurrency, and offer some real-world examples of its use in the warehouse and DC environment.
Competition is quite simple and is the most well-known type of gamification. A Talent LMS study found that 89% of employees felt that when a specific task was gamified, they felt competitive and eager to accomplish it. Rankings on any type of metric are a simple example of competitive gamification. Many organizations use them to improve transparency and encourage a little friendly rivalry. The previously mentioned best staff metric might also let you know that you are currently the 3rd fastest picker of day, week or past hour. Or it could let you know that you just set a company record for the month. These simple numbers can motivate workers who would like to “win”. Extending these competitive measures to the team environment can also improve teamwork, collaboration, and the overall team environment.
A company that serves restaurants and foodservice businesses in the New York tri-state area uses a unique performance dashboard with a photo of Yankee Stadium, where one of its clients operates. This dashboard is used as a strategy to motivate order pickers to improve order picking accuracy by linking different ranges of accomplishments to different baseball feats (singles, doubles, triples, home runs, etc.). In addition, each month an individual order selector receives a “Golden Glove Award”.
In another example, a company held family picnics that included truck and forklift “rodeos” and voice recognition races, where employees competed to demonstrate their skills using mobile apps. The organization set up two picking lines with identical tasks, timing all participants. They connected the user’s laptop to a wireless transmitter and hooked up the audio to the PA system so viewers could hear the rider’s dialogue with the brain, the orchestration engine and the voice of the solution. The competition also had an element of precision, imposing a penalty for every mistake.
Including a level of reward in gamification is still the key as it is a basic fundamental in motivating human beings. But, be careful in this regard. Don’t just focus on external incentives like payouts and prizes, but also include inherent rewards like recognition, personal achievement, status, and just plain fun.
To read the full article, click here.
