The practice of gamification is contributing to a more highly motivated workforce in the warehouse, says Ken Ramoutar, chief marketing officer of Lucas Systems Inc. 

People enjoy playing games “of all sorts,” Ramoutar says, which makes them open to the concept of gamification in the workplace, especially the warehouse. They like tracking their performance on leaderboards, and are highly conducive to competing in teams for awards and recognition. The result, he says, is a more productive and engaged workforce.

In speaking with warehouse and distribution workers over the years, Ramoutar has identified as the number-one issue the challenge of finding enough staff and keeping them. “Churn is still very high,” he says. “It’s very expensive to train up workers only to have them leave.”

Raising wages and benefits has its limits, since most warehouses have already upped pay by as much as they can. The real question, Ramoutar says, is “How do I make my warehouse a place where workers really want to stay, and give my warehouse a competitive advantage?”

A survey by Lucas found 84% of workers saying they would stay at a facility that provided workforce competitions through games. Given that 94% were already engaged in some kind of game-playing in their personal lives, that result should come as no surprise. “Folks are already familiar with it,” Ramoutar says. “They’re way ahead of you.”

Leaderboards and other inducements to compete work best when they’re easy to set up, maintain and consult, he says. To that end, technology can be an effective enabler in implementing gamification.

Expect to see greater use of the concept in warehosues in the future, Ramoutar says. “I think we’re on the cusp of this being one of the next big waves of workforce engagement.”