High Score, Low Pay: Why the Gig Economy Loves Gamification (theguardian.com) 134
Ostracus writes: Using ratings, competitions and bonuses to incentivise workers isn't new -- but as I found when I became a Lyft driver, the gig economy is taking it to another level. [...] The language of choice, freedom, and autonomy saturate discussions of ride hailing. "On-demand companies are pointing the way to a more promising future, where people have more freedom to choose when and where they work," Travis Kalanick, the founder and former CEO of Uber, wrote in October 2015. "Put simply" he continued, "the future of work is about independence and flexibility." In a certain sense, Kalanick is right. Unlike employees in a spatially fixed worksite (the factory, the office, the distribution centre), rideshare drivers are technically free to choose when they work, where they work and for how long. They are liberated from the constraining rhythms of conventional employment or shift work. But that apparent freedom poses a unique challenge to the platforms' need to provide reliable, "on demand" service to their riders -- and so a driver's freedom has to be aggressively, if subtly, managed. One of the main ways these companies have sought to do this is through the use of gamification.
Simply defined, gamification is the use of game elements -- point-scoring, levels, competition with others, measurable evidence of accomplishment, ratings and rules of play -- in non-game contexts. Games deliver an instantaneous, visceral experience of success and reward, and they are increasingly used in the workplace to promote emotional engagement with the work process, to increase workers' psychological investment in completing otherwise uninspiring tasks, and to influence, or "nudge," workers' behaviour. This is what my weekly feedback summary, my starred ratings and other gamified features of the Lyft app did. There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that gamifying business operations has real, quantifiable effects. Target, the US-based retail giant, reports that gamifying its in-store checkout process has resulted in lower customer wait times and shorter lines. During checkout, a cashier's screen flashes green if items are scanned at an "optimum rate." If the cashier goes too slowly, the screen flashes red. Scores are logged and cashiers are expected to maintain an 88% green rating. In online communities for Target employees, cashiers compare scores, share techniques, and bemoan the game's most challenging obstacles.
Simply defined, gamification is the use of game elements -- point-scoring, levels, competition with others, measurable evidence of accomplishment, ratings and rules of play -- in non-game contexts. Games deliver an instantaneous, visceral experience of success and reward, and they are increasingly used in the workplace to promote emotional engagement with the work process, to increase workers' psychological investment in completing otherwise uninspiring tasks, and to influence, or "nudge," workers' behaviour. This is what my weekly feedback summary, my starred ratings and other gamified features of the Lyft app did. There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that gamifying business operations has real, quantifiable effects. Target, the US-based retail giant, reports that gamifying its in-store checkout process has resulted in lower customer wait times and shorter lines. During checkout, a cashier's screen flashes green if items are scanned at an "optimum rate." If the cashier goes too slowly, the screen flashes red. Scores are logged and cashiers are expected to maintain an 88% green rating. In online communities for Target employees, cashiers compare scores, share techniques, and bemoan the game's most challenging obstacles.
freakonomics (Score:5, Interesting)
there's a book about this phenomenon, called freakonomics. it has interesting economics questions like, "why do drug dealers live with their mums?", despite something like a 25% death rate, and the answer turns out to be that they earn LESS money than if they went and worked for macdonalds, but they are attracted to the POSSIBILITY of becoming the "Drug Overlord". the big boss.
also just as interestingly, the moment they get a serious girlfriend, the researcher found that they quit immediately and... went to work for macdonald's. which leaves me really, really concerned as to why and how lyft and uber drivers are being psychologicall hoodwinked....
Re: freakonomics (Score:1)
Whilst simultaneously moving wealth from the local economy to silicon valley.
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It is equally delusional to think that billionaires don't benefit from a system of open borders where cheap labor can replace the local work force.
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Won't someone PLEASE think of the rich billionaires??
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What about the poor billionaires?
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Fuck them, who cares about the poor anyway.
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But Trump is a billionaire, and he built a wall. He's putting the ordinary people of the country ahead of his own interests. What a guy!
Re:freakonomics (Score:5, Insightful)
really concerned as to why and how lyft and uber drivers are being psychologicall hoodwinked....
If your company is based solely on competition as opposed to collaboration you can screw over anybody. Look at their business model, taxis annoyed people because they were slow, cost too much, unresponsive, heavily regulated and unwilling to upgrade their services.
Uber used that as their entrance to the market.
Make the deal sweet at first to attract drivers so that they compete with taxis, sweeten the deal a bit for a while, then boil the frog. Uber's relationship with their drivers is one to one. Making drivers compete with each other means they are never in a position to co-operate with each other to secure a better deal for themselves. I doubt a driver has much contact with other drivers so they are in a prime position to be screwed over with greed and isolation.
Uber are a nightmare that people haven't woken up to.
There are other apps out there ....! (Score:1)
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I agree with everything except the frog. That frog thing is a myth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
You are right. I should have used the fist fucking analogy of "slowly stretching the anus wider than a goat.cx picture" which is more accurate in these circumstances.
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Big enough sample ? I don't know. But still it's not about what they all do but what most do significantly more than the rest.
Those aren't "dealers" (Score:1)
As for why they pick being a mule over McDonald's, well, every work in fast food? It sucks and it's demeaning. But yeah, when they get a "serious" girlfriend they're stuck trying to earn as much money as they can since "serious girlfriend" in this context usually means pregnant....
Anyway I've never been a big fan of that book. It's the same one that said crime went
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Anyway I've never been a big fan of that book. It's the same one that said crime went down because we legalized abortion [wikipedia.org].
So? If you wish to refute Freakonomics on abortion and crime, make your argument. Otherwise you're just saying "I don't like that book." I don't like Justin Biever, but realize that noone GAF about that.
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Anyway I've never been a big fan of that book. It's the same one that said crime went down because we legalized abortion [wikipedia.org].
And? Crime *is* lower when unwanted children are not born. What's your issue with that correlation?
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> crime went down
Some say abortion is murder, so we would have crime going up.
You can always reduce crime rates by removing laws, if you take crime by the lawyer's definition of it being something against the law. You can even reduce the crime rate to zero by not having any laws at all; however it's been tried in the past and it does not work out well. If they removed the law against murder tomorrow for example, I think I'd settle a couple of scores that way, and I'm just one relatively level-tempered person.
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I think removing lead from petrol (and maybe other thinks, like pipes & paint) was put forward as a possible alternative explanation, maybe even in the book.
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Goshdiggetydarn it, s/other thinks/other things/
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That's also why a large proportion of the population supports tax cuts that only benefit the top 1%: they consider themselves to be "temporarily embarrassed millionaires". [wikiquote.org]
"gig economy" == minimum wage (Score:1)
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You doing "gig economy" means you can't do anything better. Period.
According to the article many work for less than minimum wage
Re:"gig economy" == minimum wage (Score:5, Insightful)
Which means burnout, which results in how to game the system, which results in cheating and theft and high turnover. Disposable workers == disposable companies == disposable investors == disposable customers, basically management by psychopath, so the system works until it blows up taking the company with it. The gig economy is just sly PR=B$ for piece labour, labour camp labour, you have a job today, you can leave the camp to work and when work is over you return.
The gig economy you choose when you work but wait a fucking minute you can not choose to live no where, eat nothing, be naked, cold and wet and be shot by law enforcers for being a homeless nut. There is no choice in the gig economy in capitalism, straight up worker exploitation, work for peanuts or starve and die and the people who take home the bulk of the profits, do none of the labour.
The gig economy to be functional would require a base pay from the government and the gig is extra, otherwise societal collapse, just the way it is.
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Which means burnout, which results in how to game the system, which results in cheating and theft and high turnover. Disposable workers == disposable companies == disposable investors == disposable customers, basically management by psychopath, so the system works until it blows up taking the company with it. The gig economy is just sly PR=B$ for piece labour, labour camp labour, you have a job today, you can leave the camp to work and when work is over you return.
Brutal, but true. Amazing that they are selling the independent contractor, gig economy bullshit as some sort of "Muh Freedom!" model, a sort of pinnacle of unlimited earnings and livin' the dream.
These "independent contractors" are just part of the manipulation, the sort of idea that is sold to people that they are temporarily inconvenienced billionaires who will rise like cream to the top.
How many Uber or Lyft Driver millionaires do we have yet? Unlimited earning potential you know....
Re: "gig economy" == minimum wage (Score:2)
How many Uber or Lyft I wouldn't know; a lot of them are still sleeping in their cars at the parking lot at the mall.
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How many Uber or Lyft I wouldn't know; a lot of them are still sleeping in their cars at the parking lot at the mall.
Let's face it, taxi drivers are not at the top of the food chain, and are pretty easily exploitable.
But Jeezus on a pogo stick, that's no reason to exploit them. If you have a working person that has to sleep in their car - that's a pretty good indicator that your system isn't working. The independent contractor business started for two reasons - one of the biggest ones was to avoid paying benefits. And one of the biggest reasons for that was not as much the cost, but the rapidly inflating costs were ma
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Put them through an aptitude test for learning to be glaziers. Take the top 20% and give the rest slingshots.
Do I have to do all the thinking around here?
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When young people will understand, current liberals have wrapped very old socialist idea in nice colorful "technology" sounding wrapper and are selling it as something new. just read the article, this is new idea where all management will be eliminated. It is happening as we speak. Only workers controlled by AI or occasional person and owners. It is sad but Russians succeeded to conquer america, another 20 years and we will have kolkhoz all over us.
Of all the possible criticisms of Uber/the gig economy, the idea that it is a form of backdoor communism is the bizzarest I've ever heard.
Or is this a troll attempting the old "if palpably deranged people are criticising X, then X may not be so bad after all" gag?
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You doing "gig economy" means you can't do anything better. Period.
Many with disabilities cannot work a 40-hour week. No one chooses to have a disability.
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It means that for some, they'll be able to make OK .. not good .. ok money.
For people trying to do it full time, forget it.
By OK money I mean doing it when surge pricing is in effect for Uber, and no other times.
For the vast majority of gig economy jobs, it means making minimum wage for no benefits.
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We should aspire to be like Bezos and Gates ..... Look at how many peoples lives are better because of the products/services they created.
I assume this post was meant in irony.
Same reason military hands out medals (Score:5, Interesting)
Points and merits are cheaper than hard cash. Duh.
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Nah. There's more important things than hard cash. But silly brownie points or having more ornaments than the average Christmas tree are not among them.
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There's more important things than hard cash. But silly brownie points or having more ornaments than the average Christmas tree are not among them.
In an environment where everyone has limited options in dress and accessorizing, medals and badges are both a visible sign of personal accomplishment and recognition for those accomplishments. It's also an environment where you don't get raises based on performance, and there are time-in-grade requirements before you can be promoted again which is what gives you the pay raise.
You can poopoo the value of such things, but that just shows you don't understand the environment or the people who live in it.
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In an environment where everyone has limited options in dress and accessorizing, medals and badges are both a visible sign of personal accomplishment and recognition for those accomplishments. It's also an environment where you don't get raises based on performance, and there are time-in-grade requirements before you can be promoted again which is what gives you the pay raise.
You can poopoo the value of such things, but that just shows you don't understand the environment or the people who live in it.
Interesting. I had several people get promotions over me - which was exactly what you described. These were gender promotions for lack of a better word, getting women promoted as high and fast as possible.
So technically I was the lowest ranked person in my department. I happened to be paid over 3 times as much as anyone else. Part of our understanding was that I would be compensated in other ways than medals and badges.
Yeah - some folks like that sort of thing. I personally think that my method of rea
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Or perhaps you are just bad at your job.
Have you seen their paychecks? That is probably just what they told you.
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Or perhaps you are just bad at your job.
Hehe, perhaps.
So technically I was the lowest ranked person in my department. I happened to be paid over 3 times as much as anyone else.
Have you seen their paychecks? That is probably just what they told you.
Seriously, you have to step up your trolling, We all knew what we were all making. People, especially those who are interested in badges and other shiny stuff, would tend to exxagerate what they made.
The point is, some people are interested in badges, and some of us like our appreciation shown in money.
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You are right, I'll never match your level of trolling.
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Hmm... so, essentially, you say that it's some sort of distinguishing feature in a world where everyone wears the same and has the same?
So it's pretty much like certain mounts in MMOs that you only get by slaughtering 50,000,000 of a mob and clearing a dungeon on super-heroic?
Re:Same reason military hands out medals (Score:4, Informative)
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Private sector companies have been using similar tactics for ages already.
"You've done a great job, you deserve a reward. We'll give you a new cool job title, but I'm very sorry there's no budget for a raise right now."
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The only thing that comes close to that in our company is that people accept compensation in additional training and certification (which does cost a fortune in itsec, so I guess company and we both are better off if they pay for it). The only titles anyone gives a fuck about in my corner is titles you get from competing courses and certifications. That's the titles we're after. But they ain't cheap.
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I don't know what they make medals from where you live, but if I melted down my great-grandfather's medal I would have 200€ worth of silver.
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Yeah, well, medals are a bit like coins, they don't make them anymore the way they used to be...
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Hey, there's even a pension for one of them.
That's why to get it you usually have to accomplish a feat that makes living long enough to actually cash in that pension really, really unlikely.
And now I've got the Rush song in my head (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's in Tom Sawyer - he gets the kids to paint a fence for him fer nowt by making them think it's a game.
Diddit-de-doo, Diddit-de-dooooo, Diddit-de-doo, Diddly diddly diddly diddly doo doo
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I think it's in Tom Sawyer - he gets the kids to paint a fence for him fer nowt by making them think it's a game.
Diddit-de-doo, Diddit-de-dooooo, Diddit-de-doo, Diddly diddly diddly diddly doo doo
You're thinking of the actual book. Yes, Tom Sawyer does that in the book.
The Rush song ... well, not really sure what the song thinks the linkage is to the book or its character. Other than the song character being a rebel or something. (And I say that as a big Rush fan.)
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Well, the titles the same.
Iron Maiden's Genghis Khan doesn't say anything about Mongol warlords (or anything else for that matter) in the lyrics, but hearing the name makes me think of it.
Workers are expected to have x% green (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not gamification, it's micromanagement. It's simply reminding employees that big brother is always watching and don't you dare let your performance flag. If it were not tracked... if management had the decency to let employees motivate themselves that wouldn't be a bad thing. This is evil.
The hidden costs, as rtb61 mentioned, are also real: burnout, high turnover, and theft. I would add to that a huge loss in self-motivated improvement and in innovation. If you boss is riding your tail not only will you do the bare minimum to keep him off but when you see something that can be done better you've already spent all your shits hating your boss and your job. You won't have any to spare for helping others, recommending changes, or other optional, beneficial behaviors.
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There is a word for that: 'Alienation'.
A lot of what he thought would solve the problem turned out to be wrong, but
quotas suck (Score:1)
What makes a game fun is that if you fail, you aren't fired. You can learn from your mistakes, you can take break if you have a hard day, etc. As soon as they say "cashiers are expected to maintain an 88% green rating" all the fun vanishes. Not just fun and games anymore.
Gamification can be good (Score:5, Interesting)
The latter example with cashier work shows that gamification is fine, so long as the game goals are reasonably achievable and in alignment with the goals of the employees. I assume most of us want to do a meaningful work, but often the work is globally meaningful, but on a day-to-day level it can seem pointless, because the result is far removed from the worker. For example, programmers hate writing docs and tests, because those things will be used in the future by some unknown people. Even if the programmer can intellectually understand the significance of docs and tests, there is no emotional reward in doing those things, therefore it feels just pointless. No amount of pay raise can increase the meaningfulness of the work, but it can improve tolerance of the meaninglessness.
I am pretty sure this comment section will have ample of examples on how gamification is used to exploit people, so yeah, there are risks.
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Mod parent up. This can be a very good thing.
If by "gamification" you mean using awards to instill performance, I give you every sport ever played along with all the performing arts. All performances are live events, they take place in real time, there are no do-overs, no second chances. It is incredibly demanding to get it right every single time. The purpose of the award system is to give the performer real-time progress feedback, without which you will never sustain the highest levels.
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Let me give you a counter example.
A few years ago I was at a company which was deploying SharePoint.
They had all of these participation badges for posting, answering questions, number of posts. The problem is the SharePoint environment was utterly useful, not being used as their primary content management system, and didn't really do much.
Management felt that if peo
Re:Gamification can be good (Score:5, Insightful)
Note the irony: Slashdot is gamified discussion. It's one of the pioneers in getting people to provide value in exchange for meaningless-ish points on the Internet, in fact.
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Mod parent up. This can be a very good thing.
If by "gamification" you mean using awards to instill performance,...
I would not agree. I've been in jobs with such programs. Variety of shifts alone can mean a great deal of variance between what are technically the same job, giving one better metrics than the other although both are doing all the work given to them. Then the management tend to give such shifts to those they like even if they can't do all the work given to them, and give poor shift to those they don't like even if they are better workers. then there are simply the people who learn how to game the system, wh
Re: Gamification can be good (Score:1)
I was going to post a comment disagreeing with you about gamification, but I was afraid it would hurt my karma.
cashiers lieing to up sell extended warranty's is (Score:2)
cashiers lieing to up sell extended warranty's is an bad thing.
Satisfaction is more than cash (Score:1)
I'm happy with my salary as an on-site fix-it-all, but I'm much more happy with helping others and gaining their thanks and appreciation.
I do volunteer work as a skydiving instructor, where I earn nothing but the joy of seeing my studens progress and develop, and it's even more rewarding than my day job. If I could live comfortably without doing anything for a living, I'd still do these things for fun.
Money has no emotional reward for me, and those who gain emotional reward from money tend to get stuck in a
Beware the perverse incentives (Score:5, Interesting)
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The next line, team leads, crew heads, etc earn game points by finding cheating team members.
The floor foremen, shift supervisors earn game points by adjusting the rewards and schemes of the pyramid below them.
Eventually you find a drummer beating, "Cruise Speed", "Battle Speed" .... Keep increasing the rhythm till only Charles Heston could still be at the oar.
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Gamification is insulting to the intellect (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, who needs a scoring system to play football? That's just bloat.
Detractors always assume full-time (Score:2, Informative)
Manna (Score:3)
If you want to read a tidy science fiction on the topic of automation, then I strongly recommend Manna [marshallbrain.com]. You can read the story for free at the author's website.
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Must be written by a cheap bastard (Score:2)
That doesn't tip properly. If a driver is doing a great job most people will tip. Hell I am a cheap bastard but even I believe in tipping well for good service.
Penalized for being friendly... (Score:2)
Some executive needs to be taken 'round back and beaten. Severely.
Makes Sense, But Rent is Due On the 1st (Score:2)
Target waits (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that why every time I go to Target, the cashier spends 30 seconds collecting my purchases before scanning anything? Gamification is fucking poisonous.
Lyft is amusing -- treats drivers like children (Score:4, Interesting)
I drove for Lyft for a short period of time .. interesting to say the least.
At least they are relying on their drivers desire to do a better job by constantly sending text messages, emails, in app popups to try and get drivers to never decline a trip, and chastising them with "it's better for the community" messages when they don't take trips or their ratings go down.
That's all well and good,except it flies in the face of the reality of driving for them, that is, only accepting trips that are close, only working high demand areas, only working when there's a fare multiplier in effect.
e.g. what's good for the company isn't necessarily good for the driver .. she is not an employee, yet they expect her to act like one.
Gamification? (Score:2)
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LOL, well, you have to offer some kind of reward/incentive and the people you're trying to date have to want to collect that reward (as in, it has to have value and appeal for them).
Generally speaking, short of cash money and shady ladies, there aren't a lot of situations that gamification can be adapted to your dating life if you're a guy.
To the average woman, your milkshake simply isn't going to bring the girls to the yard so to speak, and you lack the ability
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Smart Uber Drivers do very well (In Ottawa) (Score:4, Interesting)
We privatize the gains and socialize the losses (Score:2)
Gamification (Score:4, Insightful)
How about they start dropping some loot ? I've always said the carrot works better than the stick.
Just like Stack Exchange... (Score:2)