Gamification, monitoring and connected tech at work
Gamification is the use of game mechanics and design principles in non-game contexts to engage and motivate people to achieve their goals, including in workplaces.
Gamifying performance is happening in roles across industries from sales to warehouse work. The concept is usually based on worker competition with colleagues for digital rewards, with the aim of improving productivity.
Gamification often involves some degree of employee monitoring. In some cases, gamification has been implemented to drive up productivity but data gathered is not being used for performance management. In other cases, performance management is gamified, using goals, leaderboards and rewards to allow workers and their managers to track progress and receive feedback. Creating a high pressure and competitive environment can have negative consequences for employee mental health. This can diverge from principles like autonomy at work that are protective against work-related stress and can benefit the organisation. Attendance can also be gamified- using awards to pay bonuses to workers who limit their absences, which can have negative consequences for presenteeism.
Gamification can also be used to promote health at work. Some analytics platforms use AI to suggest productivity hacks including the ability to track uninterrupted time away from work. An example is Microsoft MyAnalytics which tracks time spent on different tasks- such as emails, meetings and ‘focus time’ on tasks that require deep concentration. This can be combined with insights on how much time spent on work outside working hours and lead to data driven recommendations such as prompts to block focused work time, or reduce after-hours work.
Meanwhile, employee monitoring software is evolving to track mouse and keyboard movement and take screenshots of computer activity to help give managers insight into workforce productivity. There has been media coverage of Amazon’s worker surveillance using connected technology such as wearables. Patents filed by Amazon on a wristband tracking system that tracks the exact whereabouts of warehouse workers as they process deliveries and vibrates to ‘nudge’ them in the direction of their next task came under criticism, and is reported to have been dropped by the company.
New law in the UK has increased cybersecurity requirements for connected technology. New cybersecurity regulations were recently announced in the US and the EU, with penalties for non-compliance, though how regulation will work in practice is unclear. Upholding the security of employee data collected against the threat of being hacked is critical. But this does not address concerns that intensive employee monitoring could lead to issues around data collection, privacy and surveillance, as well as impact negatively on employee mental health.
Gamification often involves some degree of employee monitoring. Technology is evolving and presents more scope for employee monitoring and gamification, including via connected technology which may come at the cost of employee control and autonomy when being used to drive up performance. Research is necessary to understand the impact of these trends, on both the employee and the organisation.
According to GDPR principles, if an organisation wants to process data on employee activity it must have an explicit, specific, legitimate reason for doing so, limit data collected to that purpose and not use the data collected for anything else. Data collection and storage of identifiable information should be minimised. Above all, personal data should be processed lawfully, fairly and transparently. As more companies engage with higher technology employee monitoring solutions, more questionable practices may be challenged. But awareness of all stakeholders is a prerequisite to progress.
This article was researched with the help of ChatGPT.