High Score, Low Pay: Why the Gig Economy Loves Gamification

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.

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