In Amazon warehouses, workers remain constantly busy, incentivized to keep up with the fast-paced movement of products into boxes and out the door to reach consumers within a day or two. But they also may be bored. Picking and packing tasks tend to be redundant and repetitive, giving workers little sense of fun. In response to such concerns, Amazon has begun installing gamified systems in warehouses, enabling workers to compete by completing more of their assigned tasks accurately and quickly. The games have been developed completely in-house, and they are only available to Amazon workers. In a racing game, they might gain a lap by completing a large order; in the CastleCrafter game, a successful shift might earn them a new building material they can add to their virtual designs. The system allows for both individual and group play, such that a group of workers on one shift might challenge another to see which one can earn the most badges during a day. But playing is not mandatory; workers can ignore the games altogether if they choose. Furthermore, Amazon insists that among all the performance metrics it tracks, it has no interest in keeping tabs on whether people win these games. Still, some skeptics have raised concerns, noting that heightened competition might put more stress on employees—who already face quite challenging performance standards. Nor are games a solution to some of the other alleged abuses and problems in the retailer’s warehouses. Instead, the goal is to make redundant work more bearable and thus keep employees happier and perhaps, of course, even more productive.

Source: Geneva Abdul, “Amazon Is Not Playing Games (oh yes it is) with Warehouse Worker Performance,” Retail Wire, March 16, 2021