Amazon Expands 'Gaming' Program that Encourages Employees to Work Harder

E-commerce giant Amazon is reportedly expanding a program that “gamifies” warehouse work and encourages its employees to improve their efficiency by offering them digital rewards such as virtual pets.

The Information reports that e-commerce giant Amazon is working to expand an existing program that gamifies its warehouse work and encourages employees to improve their efficiency and compete against others for digital rewards. The program is called FC Games and includes at least six arcade-style mini-games that can be played by completing warehouse tasks.

Since 2019 Amazon has used gamification in the form of workstation games to incentivize employees to improve productivity, but now Amazon is expanding these methods to warehouses in at least 20 states across the United States. Many of the games are just representations of how fast workers are completing a certain task.

One game is called MissionRacer and moves a car around a track while a picking employee sorts products into appropriate boxes. Amazon spokesperson Kent Hollenbeck told the Information:

Employees have told us they enjoy having the option to join in these workstation games, and we’re excited to be taking their feedback and expanding the program to even more buildings throughout our network.

Even with this expansion, the program remains completely optional for employees; they can switch in or out of different games depending on their preference, can play anonymously, or not play at all—the choice is theirs.

Some Amazon employees were quoted in the report stating that the games are popular as they can help break up the monotony of warehouse work. However, other employees fear that the system is another step toward a more sinister and dystopian metric system used to track employees and encourage them to work as hard and fast as possible.

Amazon Expands ‘Gaming’ Program that Encourages Employees to Work Harder

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