Exploring Real-Life Applications and Strategies
Transforming Warehouse Culture and Productivity with Gamification
2024
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Game
On
Games in the workplace?
In this eBook, we explore the real-life application of gamification in warehouses, plus what to know before implementing a gamification strategy.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Kenco’s Evolving Approach to Gamification: We’re All In It Together
Benefits of Applying Gamification in Warehouses
Implementing Gamification Strategies: Key Considerations
Learn More About Kenco’s Innovation Initiatives
What is Gamification?
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The truth is, we’re seeing it already. Top companies like Microsoft, Domino’s, Deloitte, and more have been leveraging gamification for years to engage employees and improve productivity. But what about in a warehouse setting? As it turns out, warehouses are the perfect environments to incorporate gamification strategies for many reasons, including the repetitive nature of the work, a data-driven culture, and the opportunities to cross-train and teach employees new skills.
Sounds too good to be true!
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GAMIFICATION?
Gamification applies game-design elements and principles in non-game contexts for the purpose of engaging participants and driving desired behaviors. As participants interact with the gamification program, they receive immediate feedback on their performance, as well as next steps towards new goals or achievements.
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| TABLE OF CONTENTS
What is
Most gamification strategies in the workplace focus on the performance of the individual and their contribution toward a goal. While Kenco still implements individualized gamification strategies, we have also begun to adopt a new approach in the form of team-based gamification.
We’re starting to take a different look at it because we feel like there’s an opportunity to leverage peer coaching and a peer network that hasn’t been tapped into before. For example, say you and I are working on a team together. If you’re falling behind or don’t understand how to do your job, I’m going to step up as your peer and help you figure that out because I want our team to be successful.
Kenco's Evolving Approach to Gamification
We're All In It Together
Common Objectives & Goals
Better Communication
Knowledge Sharing
Collaboration
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Kristi Montgomery, VP of Innovation, Research and Development at Kenco, shares her perspective.
Team-based gamification has the opportunity to promote better communication, knowledge sharing, and collaboration while working towards common objectives and goals.
Hear Kristi talk about the rise of gamification on the MHI View Podcast
Team-based Gamification
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Increasing Employee Motivation & Productivity
Improving Hiring and Retention
Reducing Direct Labor Costs
Driving Innovation and Ideation
Leveraging the competitive nature of humans in workplaces has been proven to yield productivity gains. Gamification can boost employee motivation and make routine jobs and tasks more enjoyable. By introducing rewards and friendly competition, gamification encourages more engagement and visibility. When employees are able to visualize and measure their own performance against a standard, a goal, or even relative to other employees, they’re more driven to succeed.
One Kenco customer achieved a 3% improvement in loading time and $172,000 in savings after implementing Rocket Turn.
Rocket Turn
Digital Displays for Visibility & Transparency at the Loading Dock
—Kristi Montgomery, VP Innovation and R&D at Kenco
Each quarter, Kenco runs an “Idea Challenge” across all of our associates to source ideas for overcoming specific work-related challenges and improving the business as a whole. Ideas get upvoted by other employees and the ones with the most votes receive a prize for their creative contributions. Additionally, top ideas also have the opportunity to be implemented in our warehouses.
Real-time visibility is a key component of any gamification strategy. Kenco has implemented Rocket Turn Digital Displays to give both employees and managers visibility into loading dock status and progress. These displays show key information about the loading door’s current task, including assigned associate, shipment number, start and due out time, percent target complete, and more. The display features a color indicator of green, yellow, or red to indicate progress and help identify loads that have reached a critical stage.
In Kenco’s warehouses that have implemented gamification, we’ve seen productivity improvements in the 3-5% range compared to sites without it.
At Kenco, we use the Gallup Q12 Employee Engagement Survey, and one of the questions asked is, ‘Do you have a best friend at work?’ If I’m on a team with you and we’re seeking to achieve a goal together—a pizza party, extra PTO, whatever it is—we start to get to know one another on a personal level. We’re rooting for each other to succeed in our shared goal. It just drives a different level of engagement and excitement about the work.
Team-based approaches to gamification can increase employee engagement and retention by offering opportunities to collaborate and connect with coworkers. These opportunities can help build and nurture both professional and personal relationships that create camaraderie and build community among the workforce.
Say you have one supervisor for every ten associates on the floor. If you’re able to implement a peer coaching model where the team is driven to succeed, you could potentially have one supervisor for every fifteen associates. As a result, you’ve lowered your overall labor costs at the facility level.
When employees are oriented around their team’s success in addition to their individual success, they’re more likely to help each other out to make the group successful. Team-based approaches have the opportunity to leverage peer coaching and even reduce direct labor costs.
Many gamification tactics today are designed to improve operational efficiency by motivating employees to work more productively. But there are opportunities to apply gamification elsewhere, to drive improvement in other important areas of the business, like innovation and continuous improvement.
Gamifying Innovation with Kenco’s “Idea Challenge”
Benefits of Gamification in Warehouses
When implemented in a warehouse, gamification can improve overall operations and employee engagement.
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Labor shortages continue to challenge warehouses across the nation. As a result, many warehouses have turned to gamification as a means of attracting newer, younger workforces. Gamification can also have a positive impact on retention, as a 2024 Lucas Systems study polling 750 U.S. and UK on-floor warehouse workers found. Nearly 84% of respondents said they were more likely to stay with a company that developed workplace competitions around their day-to-day tasks.
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Implementing Gamification Strategies
Key Considerations
Gamification plays off of employee motivation. As such, it’s important to make sure the right rewards and incentives are in place to be able to tap into those motivating forces. Incorporating a variety of rewards is a good idea to cater to the different preferences among your workforce.
Before rolling out a gamification program, there are some key considerations that should be addressed to ensure the program is set up for success.
Rewarding Performance with Pay for Performance (PFP) Programs at Kenco
PFP programs at Kenco are designed to reward warehouse employees for going above and beyond—while ensuring the work is completed to the highest degree of quality, accuracy, and safety. Digital displays are placed in the warehouse to provide helpful visualizations to communicate an employee’s progress towards reaching their bonus pay for the day, and to encourage them to meet and exceed their goals. In a recent PFP program implementation, one Kenco consumer durables customer achieved $166,000 in savings. Because of PFP programs and other employee offerings, Kenco’s average employee tenure is 32% higher than the national average.
1. Reward and Incentive Structure
More Time Off
Pay Incentives
Public Recognition
Company Store Items
Connect with Others
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Understanding What Employees Want is Key
It’s not always about speed when it comes to gamifying warehouses and improving performance—safety and quality are of the utmost importance.
Kenco Spotlight Shines a Light on a Job Well Done
Kenco’s mobile operational platform, Spotlight, allows employees to give kudos to one another for anything that deserves recognition. Employees can earn awards and badges for receiving or giving Spotlights and have their certificates displayed in public areas of the warehouse.
Implementing Gamification Strategies:
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Like any new workplace initiative, implementing gamification tactics in a warehouse setting should be carried out with a thoughtful change management strategy. Many employees may not initially understand what the goals and objectives are and may be quick to react cynically or disparagingly.
2. Safety and Quality
Any gamification strategies executed in a warehouse need to consider safety and quality measures to ensure the job is still completed to the highest standard. In fact, warehouses can even consider gamifying safety and quality as well. A few examples include allowing employees to earn points for completing safety training, identifying and reporting hazards on the job, achieving pick accuracy goals or other quality targets, and more.
3. Change Management and Communication
I think one of the key challenges with any project like this is getting adoption. More tenured employees who have done things the same way for a long time may be skeptical of new initiatives. It’s about managing the ‘why’ and the ‘what's in it for me’ so they understand why you want to go about this.
We're developing the system with a lot of configurability so we can incorporate employee ideas and feedback early on, asking them for their opinions on things like team structure, rewards, and how they think the dashboard should look. This way, it doesn’t feel like something that’s being forced but something they own.
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In order to do that, Kristi recommends communicating and working collaboratively with employees to get their input on the front end.
If I work in inventory control and you're an inbound trailer unloader, and the metric I need to meet is 300 cycle counts per hour, and yours is 50 unloads per hour, it may seem like I have a lot more work to do than you do. That can cause challenges so it’s important to communicate that we’re driving fairness across the organization.
SCENARIO 1
Kristi Montgomery VP of Innovation Research and Development Kenco
Part of a good change management and communication strategy is ensuring employees understand the fairness of the program. With warehouses employing a wide range of individuals with different skills and job requirements, it can be difficult to compare performance and output.
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© 2024 Kenco Group | 2001 Riverside Drive, Chattanooga, TN | KencoGroup.com
ABOUT KENCO
Kenco provides integrated logistics solutions that include distribution and fulfillment, comprehensive transportation management, material handling services, and information technology—all engineered for Operational Excellence. Building lasting customer relationships for over 70 years, our focus is on common sense solutions that drive uncommon value. Visit Kenco at KencoGroup.com.
Gamification is just one of the ways Kenco is innovating in our warehouses to drive better employee engagement, optimize operations and performance, and ultimately reduce costs for our customers. Learn more about innovation and technology at Kenco here.
