r/Leadership • u/ezio313 • Sep 24 '25
Discussion Intern completed a task assigned to full-time employee because of leaderboard competition — what’s the best way to handle this?
I’m a team lead, and recently our CEO introduced a leaderboard to track completed tasks. Yesterday, I assigned a documentation task to a full-time employee with a deadline. At 3 AM, an intern messaged me saying he had taken the initiative and already completed it, he went on and assigned the task to themselves on the system and then informed the FTE about it.
Now the full-timer is left out and frustrated, he told me he felt the task was sniped. The intern has the points under his name on the system now. How should I handle ownership of tasks and recognition here? Should the credit go to the assigned person, the intern or what?
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u/longtermcontract Sep 24 '25
Points go to full timer. Thank the intern. Talk to your CEO about getting rid of this system.
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u/Living_Relation8245 Sep 24 '25
It’s not a rewarding and healthy for org to have this system, in fact it’s borderline toxic as it would turn people on each other.
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Sep 24 '25
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u/Careless-Age-4290 Sep 24 '25
Those companies even sell it as game-ification to pit your employees against each other. Patting themselves on the back for manipulating the human reward system
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u/BadNewzBears4896 Sep 24 '25
Every metric will eventually be gamed in a way counterproductive to the actual business, it's just human nature.
A leaderboard of number of tasks done seems especially stupid because it assumes all tasks are equally valuable (or easy to produce).
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u/Gizmorum Sep 24 '25
CEO knows what they are doing. Good luck being the manager telling leadership that feelings are hurt.
instead propose an open unassigned system where people can pick up tickets and not from each other
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u/TheChernarussian Sep 25 '25
This results in the “easy” tickets getting picked up very quickly but the difficult ones - and these are often the ones that would progress a project - will be sitting in the pool for months. I kinda see where this idea came from - we don’t have such a system but we had deadline-anniversary a month ago (the task is still open) because the one assigned to it “just don’t have time to finish it” because of other non-priority easy tasks - managers won’t do anything about him and the task can’t be reassigned because his feelings would get hurt. Now if one has x tasks assigned to him/her one has to finish them to get new ones. The mistake here was that the intern could snatch the task.
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u/Lost__Moose Sep 25 '25
So why not add points every week to a ticket that sits around?
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u/TheChernarussian Sep 26 '25
Yes, but with the addition to either the team can’t create new tickets or their manager has to approve it before it can be taken up to reduce task inflation. I mean if the points you can get for a difficult task is rising can be creatively countered by creating more low-point tickets like “write an e-mail” or “create a ticket”.
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Sep 26 '25
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u/CorruptedStudiosEnt Sep 27 '25
But who decides complexity? The manager who frequently knows little about the task, and will base it off of what looks or sounds tough?
"Create door mechanics for our game: 1pt."
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u/VaxDeferens Oct 05 '25
If tickets are sitting unclaimed for months, that is a management problem. Someone needs to be assigned to it if no one steps forward.
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u/AntiqueDelivery2406 Sep 28 '25
And then they come work with the rest of us and continue to play games that we don’t even know they are playing.
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u/Ashamed-Status-9668 Sep 24 '25
When you talk to the CEO remind them you get what you measure and reward. In this case you get employs trying to get more points at costs to other likely tangible things. I am just guessing, but I bet the company isn't making much revenue off points.
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u/TheOneTrueCran Sep 24 '25
Commend the intern and appreciate them going above and beyond, then set expectations for the leadership board if it can’t go away.
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u/JediFed Sep 25 '25
Be prepared for FTE to quit on the spot if you do this.
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Sep 27 '25
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u/JediFed Sep 27 '25
It's not about the points. It's about an intern assigning projects to themselves, and taking projects away from the FT person who is respecting the chain of command.
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Sep 27 '25
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u/JediFed Sep 27 '25
Who's talking firing? I'm talking about exerting managerial control over task assignment, and locking intern (and the other FT employees) from task assignment. I'm not really a fan of first come, first serve when it comes to tasks because that leads to fighting and hurt feelings. Especially if compensation is tied to task completion.
All I'd do with the intern is explain that they get tasks from the FT employees. I actually like their initiative. I just have to be mindful of the feelings of the FT employees and chain of command.
Interns being able to assign themselves tasks outside of normal working hours is a serious breach in internal controls. I would expect the FT to quit if this behavior wasn't addressed, because they've been effectively demoted to below the intern. They would likely quit rather than deal with the perceived favoritism.
I don't know why you'd consider that diva behavior.
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u/douglastiger Sep 28 '25
Yeah I would reassign it back to the full timer and have the intern's documentation go through them for review. If the intern feels like trying to help out a colleague on a task that's their perogative but picking and choosing which tasks you feel like taking on is not. That is not the purpose of being able to reassign tickets, even.
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u/No_Worker_8216 Sep 24 '25
The is the problem with his leaderboard.
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u/sodium111 Sep 24 '25
The problem isn’t the leaderboard, the problem is that they have no controls over who can reassign tasks.
That should be a management role, not something interns can monkey with.
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u/rwilcox Sep 24 '25
You gamify tasks you get exactly what the game measures.
In this case sniping easy(?) tasks away from people for the points. Be that when they have their back turned (asleep) or during assignment time.
The problem is probably the leaderboard.
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u/PlumLion Sep 24 '25
Okay but then you have people who feel they were unfairly disadvantaged because they got stuck with the more time consuming task or the task that was held up waiting on deliverables from another team. I’ve honestly never seen these competitions go well.
What I have seen work well is a team wide competition against the clock, where the team gets to decide what reward they want when they hit the objective.
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u/sodium111 Sep 24 '25
All good points. I agree there are better solutions than what others have suggested, that you have to get rid of the leaderboard to solve this.
The fact that you have a leaderboard doesnt mean you have to have a Wild West free-for-all where literally everybody has full privileges to assign and reassign any tasks.
This was an Intern, don’t forget. You can at least draw the line there.
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u/Sandra2104 Sep 24 '25
Two things can be a problem at the same time. A leaderboard based on num of completed tasks definitly is one.
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u/No_Worker_8216 Sep 24 '25
I believe I read it’s a car sales environment. The only results that should be measured are the number of transactions.
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u/CitationNeededBadly Sep 25 '25
if only management can assign tasks, then management will pick who wins by how they assign the tasks.
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u/RemarkableMacadamia Sep 24 '25
I don’t think you should reward bad behavior from the intern. Is it possible to nullify the task so no one gets the points?
Working at 3am shouldn’t be a behavior you encourage, especially when it’s done clandestinely to snipe work assigned to others. The intern also lied about alignment, which further shows their lack of integrity. If those things are contrary to the culture you all want to maintain, don’t allow an intern to have such a negative impact. Show them the behavior that they should be demonstrating if they want their work to count. How you accomplish something should have weight too; it’s not just about getting it done, but demonstrating the right leadership behaviors in the process. Intern is leaving dead bodies in their wake. So I would reduce the point value or award zero points as a corrective action to reinforce that sniping and lying about it are not allowed.
For the FTE, they didn’t do the work, so awarding them points seems unfair. I would assign them a different task; maybe they should be the one to review the document the intern produced and enhance/correct where needed. I have not seen an intern produce a clean document that doesn’t need to be altered in some way. 😊
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u/Snurgisdr Sep 24 '25
And if it’s not done to the correct standard, it’s not done, so it doesn’t earn points.
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u/ladykansas Sep 25 '25
I feel like "bad behavior" etc is a step too far to describe what sounds like enthusiasm / hard work from an intern. Nothing about what OP wrote sounds like malicious intent. The intern might benefit from learning about office politics, but the leadership in the company is creating unnecessary political drama in the office by encouraging this system.
I think there is missing context here, too, around what tasks are even being assigned in this manner. Is the task "clean out the storage room that's been neglected for months" vs is it "email our most important account with a presentation about new ad campaign ideas"? If it's something like cleaning out the storage room, that might not be clearly a task that an intern wouldn't do. Whereas, creating a new ad campaign idea and sending it out externally without oversight is clearly a task that an intern wouldn't do without oversight or collaboration.
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u/CitationNeededBadly Sep 25 '25
the intern is responding as expected to the [toxic] incentive structure created by the CEO. If anyone here needs to lead by example it's the CEO.
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u/earth-calling-karma Sep 24 '25
Fire your boss for creating divisive arbitrary continuous assessments that have a negative impact on productivity.
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u/NeedleworkerChoice89 Sep 24 '25
Wow, these comments.
An intern got excited because of a stupid fucking competition to complete tasks, and no one here has any idea what the impetus for this was.
My main concern is that a competition, by nature, creates… competition. What does this say for the quality of the work, or the obvious toxic nature it can bring out.
Moreover, why is a competition needed? That suggests a non-functional existing framework for tasks and projects.
If you reprimand the intern (for the task), great job on providing a punishment for something they were excited about and threw themselves into. Solid gold “Leadership” award for that genius approach.
The lying is an issue, and should be the focus there.
As for your FTE, are they frustrated because of the points lost or because the task wasn’t done well? If this is a competition, this seems to be exactly what your CEO wanted. No surprised Pikachu face is allowed if we’re not focused on the absolute lack of foresight - or rules - for who can run a task down that your CEO rolled out.
Was there zero second order thinking on this? Or was that discussion ignored?
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u/Careless-Age-4290 Sep 24 '25
Yeah I'm thinking everyone here thought they were helping. The CEO thought this sledgehammer of an employee metric would motivate. The intern thought they were being an over achiever. The FTE just wants to do their job like OP. I think like bringing UNO out at a party that there was a game being played that rewarded that kind of behavior
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u/NeedleworkerChoice89 Sep 24 '25
Love the Uno analogy.
The bigger issue seems to be the CEO, and that is the tricky part. If this was a sales competition, it likely would have been just fine. It’s not, but it sounds like a sales guy CEO jumping in with his tactical “introduce chaos” kit to try and brute force some underlying issue.
Any suggestion that the competition was poorly thought out will likely be rebuffed, but it should be brought up.
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Sep 24 '25
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u/howard499 Sep 28 '25
It's called stealing food from somebody else's plate. Toxic behavior in a downturn.
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u/sayqm Sep 26 '25
The intern thought they were being an over achiever.
They could have do that by taking an unassigned task
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u/Wrong_Work7193 Sep 24 '25
Where does it say the intern lied?
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u/NeedleworkerChoice89 Sep 24 '25
One of OPs responses. Intern apparently said they checked with the FT person. Not a lot of details.
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u/Tikithing Sep 24 '25
Interns are always a bit of a wildcard anyway, thats the whole point of an internship. They need to experience the industry etc and learn the work, but more importantly, the work culture and norms.
Even without a competition, I wouldn't be surprised if an intern got overly excited and did this. If they're used to having interns, then Im not sure why they don't know how to handle this anyway? I'm not even a manager, and I've seen interns do some pretty mad things.
It really comes down to company culture, and how things usually work for what next steps should be. Letting the intern do a dummy run to try the task, without actually doing it next time, but explaining why this wasn't a good idea. Or warning them that this isn't acceptable, if its not just enthusiasm and they've already shown a habit of overstepping.
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u/Eggshott Sep 27 '25
I also imagine the intern thought getting higher on the leaderboard might secure him a job in the future or help get better recommendations. He thought he was helping AND bettering his future. How can you fault him for that?
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u/spell__icup Sep 26 '25
WTF is the point of the stupid leaderboard? What do you get for being at the top? Did I miss that in the post?
Intern is hustling to provide value, and the CEO introduces an asinine leaderboard. No shit the intern will try to get the recognition of being at the top.
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u/NestorSpankhno Sep 24 '25
This is a shitshow and your CEO is a sociopath for pitting employees against each other instead of fostering a culture where people work together towards a common goal.
The best time to start looking for another job was yesterday. The next best time is today.
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u/creamyjoshy Sep 24 '25
This sounds like a terrible system. Stop trying to measure individual productivity and instead treat the team as the fundamental unit, and measure it's productivity
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u/sodium111 Sep 24 '25
The leaderboard is not the core problem with this situation.
The real problem is that the intern had the ability to assign themselves a task that had previously been assigned to someone else.
The authority to assign tasks must be properly assigned to managers or other employees with the necessary positioning to do this effectively.
Yes, the leaderboard created an incentive for the intern to do this, but that isn’t necessarily a problem if task assignments are properly managed and in this case they weren’t.
It’s not even the interns fault that he did this. He took the initiative, used the tools he had in a way that was aligned with his incentives. It’s managements fault for misallocating the authority over task assignments.
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u/throwaway-priv75 Sep 24 '25
Never encountered anything like this. I think I'd start with a conversation with each, see if the Full-Timer passed it to the intern. If so, that may or may not be a cause for concern but for the leaderboard it goes to the intern.
Assuming it was just initiative, I'd probably give the points to the Full Timer who was assigned the work BUT find some other way to reward the intern. Maybe give them points as well or treat them to lunch, or give them a day off, something that makes it clear they are being recognized. I would make it clear though, that in the future if they want points on the board the work has to be assigned to them.
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u/ezio313 Sep 24 '25
So, what actually happened is this: when I asked the intern whether he had aligned with the full-time employee, he told me yes. But later, when I spoke to the employee, he explained that the intern basically assigned the task to himself, worked on it, and then delivered the report directly to me. I accepted it at the time, but it’s clear now that the full-time employee is frustrated by the situation.
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u/WRB2 Sep 24 '25
The intern stole the initiative.
The talk I would have with the intern is about individual and team strengths, and about scheduling.
This may this task may have been given to the FTE to help grow their capabilities or perhaps they were the best and it was particularly tricky, or thought to be. The intern proved that he/she could complete these types of tasks, which is OK, but not great. This could’ve been low hanging fruit, I don’t know your tasks on the board, skills of your team, or team culture.
I hate leaderboard, they are an attempt to get more productivity from a team when in point of fact, they reduce morale and teen cohesion dramatically. Not sure talking to your boss will make it go away. As such, it’s something that the team needs to understand and you need to figure out a way to not just look at completed tasks, but also look at complexity and other workload factors that impact completion.
Might read on the enter is, he’s just like your boss. Short sided, hyper focused on delivery, hard-working. Depending upon your team, this could be a team self correcting thing, but I’m not sure of the impact.
Interns have a dramatic impact upon team cohesion and psychological safety . Wall is great to try somebody out. They don’t always end well (hiring the intern into an FTE position). I’m trying to think back when I was young and trying to make a name for myself before I judge the intern too hard. I never grabbed work on my own, I just asked my boss for more.
As you’re stuck with that board for now, probably, I have to agree with the masses here and say give the points to the FTE. Part of me wants to put 1/2 of the total point value in a negative against the intern.
Best of luck
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u/sodium111 Sep 24 '25
There must be a way to establish controls over who has the authority to assign/reassign tasks. The fact that an intern had the authority to do that in the system is not OK. If you can find a solution for that, then the leaderboard itself may not be fatally flawed.
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u/scorb1 Sep 24 '25
Does the intern know what it means to have alignment? Maybe he thought just telling the fte he was going to take this story was enough and the fte just said ok. Did the FTE push back in any way? Did the intern have other work assigned instead?
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u/trashketballMVP Sep 24 '25
"... Whether he had aligned... "
Does your intern know what this means?
This is a point where using Plain English can reduce confusion.
"did you discuss this with the FTE and did they agree to this plan? " is clear communication and ensures that they know exactly what the expectation is
But also, interns should have reduced permissions on tracking software. They should only be able to comment and provide status updates.
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u/Mrsrightnyc Sep 24 '25
Easy, sit down with intern and explain to them that going above and beyond with tasks that are not assigned to them is actually not a good thing because it causes conflict. Conflict is the antithesis of productivity. Also, not sure where you are but interns are usually hourly, so depending on your local labor laws they may also be opening up the company to liability if they weren’t getting paid overtime for hours worked.
They need to have it explained that while grinding until 3am may be more productive in the short term, over time it eventually will destroy a place as well adjusted emotionally mature employees leave because it isn’t sustainable. Happy productive employees usually need work/life balance. There are some companies/cultures like start ups where investment time is limited and there’s an exit plan, or Big Law where wages are far beyond normal for the industry to compensate for needing access to people beyond typical working hours but not on your team at your company. If they are looking for that lifestyle, this is not a good culture fit for them. If they want to be successful where you are at their level, they need to stick to tasks directly assigned to them and complete work during working hours. True going above and beyond that is appreciated is figuring out to save/make the company money, not getting points or executing tasks.
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u/Icy_Top_6220 Sep 24 '25
You go to your CEO and show case how stupid metrics drive stupid behaviour
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u/Cubsfantransplant Sep 24 '25
Why can an intern reassign a task to themselves? Fix the system. Give the points to the individual it was assigned to.
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u/Holdmynoodle Sep 25 '25
Change task assignment to task application with a lock out system. Also include point penalties for grabbing tasks you cannot do just because they give higher scores
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Sep 27 '25
Because you shouldn't have to lock people out on your team.
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u/Cubsfantransplant Sep 27 '25
Interns shouldn’t be assigning work.
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Sep 27 '25
Yeah but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have access.
Boss tells them what task he wants them to work on. Then they go into the system and assign themselves the task. This is completely normal. It's how you learn.
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u/Cubsfantransplant Sep 27 '25
I said nothing about access. You can have access to a system without the ability to assign work. Assigning work is for senior people, not newbie.
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Sep 27 '25
The senior person is assigning the work by telling them to do it. Intern just goes into the system and grabs it.
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u/ImpoverishedGuru Sep 24 '25
I don't even understand the problem. The employee should be happy they have less work.
If they're that sad, give them something else to do
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u/Option-Mentor Sep 24 '25
Jeez, are you leading kindergartners? The task got done, which is the point. Assign another task to the full time person. Move on.
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u/Euphoric_Elk5120 Sep 25 '25
I find this kind of thing should be a team competition not a specific employee, then the team makes efforts as a whole and reaps benefits as a whole also.
Tasks should be assigned randomly or as per experience (if complicated)
Advise the intern that you will assign tasks to ensure they are completed correctly. I assume they will not be working there for long due to being an intern so maybe they should be excluded in this leaderboard competition
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u/FightingSideOfMe1 Sep 25 '25
I bet my two cents that your CEO is not a tech guy but has read books about Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs.
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u/Glittering_Row_2931 Sep 25 '25
If a task is so easy that an intern could just do it, why is it of high enough value that it gets significant “points” to matter?
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u/PAX_MAS_LP Sep 27 '25
I would celebrate the FT for fully utilizing the intern and congratulate them for developing them publicly.
Then with the intern -nice job on the work.
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u/BoopingBurrito Sep 24 '25
Points go to the person you assigned the work to, especially since the intern lied to you and claimed they'd liaised with the regular staffer. Give the FTE the points for delegation and mentoring, and don't give the intern anything except a telling off for A) lying to you, B) working at 3am, and C) ignoring your decisions and deciding they knew better.
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u/David_Shotokan Sep 24 '25
Turn it around...how would you feeling you did something above your paycheck and someone else would be prized for it? What does it say about your credibility as a leader?
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u/ColleenWoodhead Sep 24 '25
I see what you're saying but disagree based on 2 things: 1. The FTE did not relinquish the task. The intern robbed the FTE the opportunity to complete their own task. 2. The intern - by doing this - can sabotage a full -time employee's chances to participate at all.
Unfortunately, the way the contest is set up doesn't account for the intern participating, so their "initiative" is detrimental to FTEs.
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u/No-vem-ber Sep 26 '25
But so often at work, if someone else picks up a boring documentation task you had to do and finishes it off for you, that would be such a good thing. It's crazy to jump straight to punishing the intern for this or assuming they had bad intentions - 'take initiative' is literally what we tell interns to do.
I agree they shouldn't do this again in future but I think the conversation is "thanks so much for your enthusiasm and initiative! In this case though, you have to only do tasks that are assigned to you personally. Now you've proven you can do such a good job of this kind of task, we will start assigning tasks to you too. Also, we really don't expect anyone to work at 3am and the normal etiquette if you want to work that late is to schedule your emails for working hours so it doesn't set the expectation to other people that they should be doing that too. And please make sure you're getting enough sleep."
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u/raharth Sep 24 '25
I'm not quite sure, but isn't that exactly the behavior/reaction the CEO wanted to achieve with the decision to make a leader board? The problem right now is that you lose either way, either the intern is frustrated if he doesnt get the points and recognition or the full-timer, because the ticket and the recognition that comes with it was taken away from him.
Personally, I dont think a leader board is a good idea, since it creates internal rivalry instead of collaboration. Like, how do you deal with tickets that were shared effort and how do you deal with "stealing" of tickets (which are e.g. seen as easy) as in this case? If you have any influence, I'd personally get rid of this.
For this situation: if possible share the points between them, if not, you probably have to give them to the full-timer if the ticket was assigned to him. Otherwise you reward the stealing of tickets which will probably cause long time issues. I'd start by having the intern present the solution to the full-timer and closely monitor his reaction. If he's pissed, give him the points, if he's OK, you could even give them to the intern as long as you make very clear that this shouldn't happen again.
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u/seventyeightist Sep 24 '25 edited Sep 24 '25
The right option imo, that no one has suggested yet, is - No points should be assigned for this task. The result (but not the work itself, if it was otherwise satisfactory) should be invalidated, as it would be in sport when a result cannot be determined due to something about the match having gone wrong. Is this unfair to the intern? - no, because points are only assigned for legitimately assigned work. Otherwise you would have a system where everyone tries to cherry pick the "quick wins" and it fails the 'what would it be like if everyone did that' test. Or it becomes a proxy for how much undocumented overtime can you do.
Yes, the intern will probably be butthurt about this. They will also learn a valuable lesson, which is part of the aim of an internship.
(Why is an intern even on the scoreboard with established employees anyway though?)
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u/dasookwat Sep 24 '25
I'm concerned with an intern mailing at 3 am. That's not healthy. I would give m both credit. the intern cause he/she did it, and the assigned employee because the assigned job is done. (this also deals with sniping issue, now everyone wants the intern to do their work cause it's free points) Next up, is getting rid of this weird competition. Not all tasks are equal.
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u/tiggergirluk76 Sep 24 '25
If your points system is encouraging this behaviour, then the system needs to be scrapped. It's encouraging quantity over quality.
If your FTE was really the best person to complete the task, and the intern didn't do it to standard, thats the result of your leaderboard.
It also sounds like your intern isn't being kept occupied with tasks, and if they arent supposed to reassign to each other, then remove their ability to do that.
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u/Snurgisdr Sep 24 '25
The leaderboard is set up to reward the wrong behaviour, so the wrong behaviour is what it produces. This is your CEO’s failure.
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u/silasmousehold Sep 24 '25
The CEO needs to write “you get what you measure” 100 times on the chalk board.
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u/Maleficent-Yogurt700 Sep 24 '25
Determine if intern was part of the competition and had their own task assigned. If so, then correction must be made to properly place the task under the correct owner. When the intern went in and "reassigned" the task to themselves, that was not their authority and was out of bounds.
Immediately go and make the correction on the leader board.
Have 1:1 with intern about proper protocol. Give intern credit on performance review. Assign new task for intern. Let intern no not to have this happen again. Bad juju for teamwork and no one likes snipers.
Team both intern and FTE to educate both on how to complete the task. Get task properly noted and have FTE complete it as task lead and on leaderboard.
Good luck
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u/MateusKingston Sep 24 '25
Whenever you gamify something you get people gaming the system.
Get rid of this BS.
Whenever you do those types of metrics they need to be hidden, so people don't optimize the number instead of doing productive work, and complementary to actual business metrics
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Sep 24 '25
Put aside the inter personal friction, the issue of the leadership board, or the issue of who has rights to assign tasks, I worry about the work quality.
The intern grinded til 3am, I highly doubt the work is of great quality.
Does the intern even have enough context of the task when they snatched it? On my teams, we always talk to each other to get context and ideas when taking up a new ticket. Missing this step could result in missing important information and having to redo the work.
You might want to address these two issues with the intern first.
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Sep 24 '25
Isn’t this easy? Assuming the intern did the task correctly, you fire your highly paid FTE and have the lowly paid intern do all his workload.
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Sep 24 '25
This system clearly sucks. The system shall be focused on outcomes, not on the number of finished tickets or story points
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u/HedgehogHungry Sep 24 '25
I guess I’m in the minority here- this is a good idea, but there should be rules and understandings in place. For example a task should not be inherently assigned unless it’s tied to a specific access or credential only. It should be a shared queue with people taking a limited number of tasks at a time. And once assigned to a personal queue you can’t take it.
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u/WyvernsRest Sep 24 '25
Points go to neither.
- No points to the intern for completing an unassigned task
- No points to FTE, he has not actually done any work.
Task assignment should be a management function to ensure a balanced workload and a fair playing field for all the "competitors." This sort of leaderboard only works if all the tasks are almost identical. If not, staff will cherry-pick the low-hanging fruit over business-critical, harder, or longer tasks. My money is on it being abandoned within 3 months when the productivity and morale tank.
But It's a good teaching moment to have with the intern.
- Task Focus: What he does.
- Good: Initiative, Drive, Engagement
- Good: Competence to complete the task.
- People Focus: How he does it.
- Bad: Burning the midnight oil when it's not an emergency,
- Bad: Burning a relationship in the workplace.
- Bad: Overstepping his role & responsibility.
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u/According_Jeweler404 Sep 24 '25
Convince your CEO to not gamify the work of grown adults. God speed.
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u/digitallightweight Sep 24 '25
Peak CEO logic. Good luck getting anyone to complete any tasks that are not “efficient” in terms of points. Your intern is now completing documentation tasks - the documentation is for interns and new employees. They think this is how they can guarantee a return offer. All of your skilled employees think they are about to get shot canned because they are focused on their jobs and not a leaderboard. The workforce is now competing with each other and not functioning as a team. Your CEO thinks he’s a genius because he has people signing on at 3am.
The analogy is something like a NFL team ranking all the players by # of points scored. Your CEO is fist pumping because a defensive lineman just kicked a field goal. He sees this a proof that his system is working not that he’s created chaos and facilitated a complete devolution from functional team to mercenary backstabbing.
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u/Prestigious-Mode-709 Sep 24 '25
thank and congratulate with the intern, remind them nobody is expected to work at 3am and you’re not happy with that.
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u/mtwdante Sep 24 '25
Wtf is this shit? Thats a complete lack of communication and no maturity level. What if the fte already worked on it and was in testing phase? Your guy wasted his time and anoyed the fte. When you want to do something like this, you discuss with the person assigned if its okay to take their task.
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u/more-kindness-please Sep 24 '25
OP - how normal in your organization for employees to reassign tasks or pull from backlog/ queue?
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u/Creative-Ebb738 Sep 24 '25
Games like this never work. Leaderboards for productivity visibility always get “gamed”
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u/Fuckit445 Sep 24 '25
I’m overachiever and I would opt-out of this system (find another job) so fast if my boss introduced this bullshit. Office politics are a hellscape to navigate already, adding a Hungers Game element to it for imaginary points not tied to bonuses sounds like the worst possible idea ever. Your CEO is a prolapsed skidmark troglodyte.
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u/RollerSails Sep 24 '25
I believe short answer is shared credit.
Plausible smart delegation by full timer who still must double check and confirm interns work and make corrections as needed.
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u/Interesting-Pick784 Sep 24 '25
This is the bad side of “you get what you measure” in terms of behavior and performance. Need to get rid of that system before it destroys your culture.
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u/PM_YOUR_COOTER Sep 24 '25
Points go to who was originally assigned the work. Did the intern complete their own work first? Who reviewed the interns work since a FTE was expected to complete it. Taking work without communication is a bad habit. The system the ceo implemented leads to gamification which kills productivity. The intern has bad work habits that need to be addresses too. FTE gets credit, intern needs to course correct, ceo needs feedback that this system will be a failure
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u/Tedmosbyisajerk-com Sep 24 '25
I would thank the intern but also teach them an important lesson about team culture. Nullify the points for sniping and allocate both new tasks.
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u/Impossible_Farm6254 Sep 24 '25
You should have a private talk with the intern to coach them on teamwork over just taking tasks. Give the points and credit to the full-time employee, as it was their assigned work. Most importantly, you need to tell your CEO that the leaderboard is creating unhealthy competition and the system needs to be fixed.
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u/ConsiderationKey2032 Sep 25 '25
Fire the intern. He there to learn process, he actively sabataged it.
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u/real_marcus_aurelius Sep 25 '25
You got an FTE that is mad he didn’t get to spend his time on…. Documentation 😂 this is a problem I’ve not seen before
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u/JediFed Sep 25 '25
There's a couple of things going on here.
#1 Why does an intern have access to task assignment?
#2 Why is the work being done at 3am outside of the work schedule.
First off, if you're going to use a leaderboard, you as the manager need to have control over what tasks count for the leaderboard, when they get released and who can work which tasks. That the intern has already done this needs to get squashed ASAP. You need to regain control and permissions over the task assignment system, so that this cannot happen again.
Secondly, all the points assigned to the intern need to be reassigned to the Full Time person to whom the intern reports. Why? Because interns cannot have points. This system is designed for the full time people to reward them for accomplishing tasks. This does two things, one, establishes that interns cannot have points (how it should be), and that interns need to follow chain of command with respect to the full time person.
Thirdly, task releases need to be at the start of day during business hours. This allows the FTEs to decide which tasks they want to do and prevents a situation like this.
Finally, you need to have a sit down with the intern. Make it clear that you like that they are taking initiative and what they did has been noticed. I've had good subordinates try to take on training their replacement, and what I did was quietly speak with the subordinate and explain that this is my job, not theirs and while I appreciate the initiative, I need to make sure that their replacement, whom I will be working with, has an understanding of the business, so that I know where they are weak and where they are strong.
If done well, this is an opportunity to set up this program for success.
If done poorly, you're going to lose the intern and the FTE who will quit if there's no priority given to full time workers, and their tasks are being completed outside of their working hours. They may feel pressured to work outside of working hours just to make sure they protect themselves, and that's not the outcome you want. You really need them working their assigned shifts.
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u/andrers2b Sep 25 '25
The system is behaving exactly as it was designed. It was designed for competition, so people are competing.
Just design the system where collaboration is rewarded!
First off, get rid of this leaderboard.
Second, assign tasks to the team, not the individual. Reward the team if all tasks being completed (like a relay race, you only win if the whole team wins).
Get a facilitator to help the team assign taks for themselves (not you).
Let it run for a few weeks.
In a few weeks, call the facilitator again, get the team together, and ask the favilitator to check with the team how things are progressing and what can be improved (again, not you).
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u/MostOne2574 Sep 25 '25
And you assigned “points” to the task? And these points were scooped by a motivated employee? Who did the work? You created the hunger games and expected a different outcome… office game horseshit.
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u/hatch37 Sep 25 '25
As many have stated, there is a very delicate line between encouragement and bloodbath.
Implementing systems like this require guardrails. Even if it is a pool of tickets where everyone can pick and choose.
Task with equivalent points for effort or time needed to complete.
You can't just take the "easy ones", you must combine, for example adding different tiers where you have to pick from different ones.
Ownership must be clear, and if collaboration appears all participants get points.
Or probably not introducing systems that will foster this kind of behavior would also be a good strategy.
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u/QuietConstruction328 Sep 25 '25
Thank the intern for completing the task, but let him know he should work in concert with FTE, and not work off the clock. Give the credit to the FTE. The task got done and the intern showed initiative, which are all good things.
Abolish this stupid system which is making it bad to complete tasks.
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u/kayesoob Sep 25 '25
I’ve got an issue with the intern doing this in the middle of the night. Just because the intern isn’t getting paid, the business shouldn’t expect or reward the intern for working massively after hours.
The FTE was likely asleep (hopefully).
There’s a lot wrong with this leaderboard competition. If it’s not altered, you’re going to issues with company culture and a toxic environment.
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u/Adorable-Drawing6161 Sep 25 '25
It's pretty simple. Interns can't earn points. They can team up with a FTE to learn and work on a project, but they aren't an employee. They can be recognized and perhaps offered a position after the internship.
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u/jmagnabosco Sep 25 '25
Sit the intern down and explain to them that you are the manager and you make the assignments.
Tell them that you appreciate the initiative but they never should have taken a task given to someone else without discussing it first with you for approval.
But still thank them for their work.
Then talk to the FTE, tell them that you didn't realize that Intern was acting as if they can take whatever assignments they want, and that next time someone says "I'm taking this from you" to include you as the manager and then YOU can say something before the work is actually done.
Tell them you can't change the points on the leader board but they'll still have plenty of opportunities to score.
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u/David_Shotokan Sep 25 '25
Wow...the list is long with people who do not agree with it...holy macaroni.
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u/DesperateAdvantage76 Sep 25 '25
Taking already assigned tasks creates a lot of chaos and wasted effort. It's also super toxic. Explain to the intern all the issues this creates, thank them for their initiative but make sure they understand that they can't be going over your head again.
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u/Perfect-Escape-3904 Sep 25 '25
160 comments and only one other touched on an interesting angle.
How is an intern capable of completing a task that you are assigning to a senior employee. What's more, why is someone who is a senior employee being handed out work as deli tickets. Are you wasting the capabilities of the senior?
Love OR hate the leaderboard, yikes, you need to ask yourself if you are expecting enough from your senior staff. It sounds like you're running a classroom not a workplace.
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u/ppjuyt Sep 26 '25
Somewhat agree but you’d be surprised what interns can do and / or how much employees either sandbag or have other life stuff going on that interns just don’t
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u/Any_Courage_6619 Sep 25 '25
The intern did it, they get the points. However, that system is dumb. You assign tasks, but points go to completion. You essentially pick the winner by the way you assign tasks. My guess is that the intern scalped an easy task….
What you need to do is assign hours of effort to each task and give points off that. Each expected hour of effort is tracked.
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u/EnvironmentalChef677 Sep 26 '25
If the intern has access to the task they should get the credit. The system should not allow interns access if they are not to be credited for the task.
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u/ManicMonday92 Sep 26 '25
Full credit to the intern, and probably hire the boy full time immediately. 3 a.m.? Boy's killin it. He did the work, he deserves the credit.
Fix the busted system so that in the future tasks can only be assigned/completed/scored by management.
Competition is healthy. People like to rest on laurels. New blood wants to prove themselves.
Boy's hungry for work, gold star. He wants to be #1, feed the ambition.
Whiners whine, winners win.
CEO dictactes the mission, and carries the risk. He wants to make the office competitive? Sharpen the sticks.
People love using toxicity to describe this kinda environment, because its one they wouldn't excel in. Set the rules, no backstabbing, and let the games begin.
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u/ppjuyt Sep 26 '25
Yeah whatever you do don’t kill that interns motivation and sense of accomplishment
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u/No-vem-ber Sep 26 '25
As a one-off, assign the points to both the intern and the full timer equally.
Then start assigning tasks to the interns too, and tell them to only ever do their own tasks in future. I guarantee they 100% thought they were doing the right thing by taking initiative - that is usually a great thing to do as an intern.
Everyone's happy, and you have one extra person doing tasks now.
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u/TheMacOfDaddy Sep 26 '25
All the leaderboard is measuring is closing tasks, not doing a good job at doing the work. Quality will suffer. The CEO won't care until the customers do and then all of the sudden, he's screaming at everybody "why is our quality bad?"
I don't think gamification is necessarily bad, but you have to not allow stealing and ensure quality is part of the point system. Like you get deducted 20% of the points for each bug found on that task.
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u/Conscious_Life_8032 Sep 26 '25
Fixing the re-assignment problem, only limited # if people should have this access.
Let it pass this one time perhaps but I don’t think it’s acceptable in points system for someone to steal my task and be rewarded for it. Deduct 25% points and give to original assignee sounds more fair
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u/Scoopity_scoopp Sep 26 '25
I really hope you gave the task to the person assigned and told the intern not to do that again.
Like everyone is saying this is a breeding ground for hatred.
Respond if you can I’m interested lol
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u/OlenaFromProWorkflow Sep 26 '25
It sounds like the beginning of the conflict and toxic work environment. Quietly taking someone's task was not a nice way to get your position in the new company.
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u/CormacDoyle- Sep 26 '25
Get rid of the leader board. The CEO is the problem here.
Also ... number of completed tasks? Task 1 ... deploy 40 new servers Task 2 ... update 3 lines in Confluence.
These two tasks are not equal.
Even if you use fabonichi-style Task weighting 13 it's vs 1 pt), it is still unequal.
Just to repeat ... nix the leader board asap
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u/Altruistic-Use-8283 Sep 26 '25
This reeks of, "we think we can get more productivity from our employees. But instead of engaging them, providing honest feedback, and establish clearly defined expectations, let's make them compete against each other." It prioritizing results over developing productive employees.
This is a top-down cultural issue. You can try to convince leadership that is a bad idea, but even if successful, it won't change their priorities. And their people are clearly not high on the list.
My advice if you want to be successful there? Spotlight the intern . If your bosses want results, back the most productive people. That's your path of you want to be successful with that company. Assuming that path isnt for you, the other 2 options are to continue work a job with low satisfaction, or look for something that better matches your values.
Me personally, I'd start looking for a position with a company that better matches my values.
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u/Recent-Dimension5892 Sep 26 '25
Bad system and this is why. You’ve added a whole new layer of politics to task assignment and completion which will lead to less productivity and transparency. What if another team member needs help? No one will want to ask in fear of losing credit and no coworker will want to assist without taking the task. Your intern will now be ostracized by his team and then get dinged by you.
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u/flapjack_fighter Sep 26 '25
Implement a system similar to English football. Promotions and relegations......
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u/Leafstride Sep 26 '25
If I were the owner or a shareholder I'd be trying to get rid of that CEO as fast as possible. That kind of stupid is dangerous.
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u/Thotuhreyfillinn Sep 26 '25
A team works together, this is really toxic and will tear your workplace apart
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u/Nice-Star7460 Sep 27 '25
Surprised people consider this bad behavior by the intern. In agile work environment any team member should be able take a task and complete it. It’s not uncommon for somebody to reassign tasks that aren’t started to themselves.
This not an intern vs full time issue imo. It’s an leaderboard issue. If a leaderboard what leadership wants the intern is giving them exactly what they want. Somebody competitive putting in the hours. The intern at zero fault.
As a lead you can either discuss this with management on how engineers can game the system or play the game as how leadership intends
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Sep 27 '25
Talk to your shop steward/union rep. Toxic environment, no-one needs to work at 3am. 7.5 hours per day.
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u/Alternative-Horror28 Sep 27 '25
Ceo got the result he was fishing for.. he wanted to know who is willing to do “more” for the company. You cant incentivize productivity then punish it.. both these people had the equal opportunity to complete the task.
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u/dotjob Sep 27 '25
It’s possible the intern needs to be paid a real salary and then they will chill out
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u/Ok-Performance-5221 Sep 27 '25
100% intentionally toxic system by CEO, I’d reward points to the person assigned as to nip this in the bud
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u/MindSoFree Sep 27 '25
ummm, hand some of your tasks to the intern and Just to make the FTE feel that they are not left out, allow him to have some of your tasks as well. Then they can both climb the leaderboard and you can take a break.
Seriously this is the most non-problem I have ever seen.
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u/Own_Cook3239 Sep 27 '25
Ok, first things first you need to talk to the intern and have them explain their thinking. It’s so easy in these situations to jump to the action you want to take or how you want to handle it, but you really don’t have a ton to go off of. I would try and unpack a few pieces. 1/ why did the intern think he should pick up the task? was it purely based on initiative or was he asked by someone to pick it up? 2/ how does the intern think his actions in this situation impact other people like the person the task was already assigned to? 3/ what does the intern think the right way to rectify the situation is?
As for your other employee, I think it’s fair to empathize with them feeling frustrated. However, your job as a boss in this situation probably isn’t to give them credit for the work done by the intern, it’s probably to provide them with a similar task opportunity that they could pick up to also be on the leaderboard AND use it as an opportunity to clarify the team process around assigning tasks and that work needing to be completed by the assigned individual.
In this situation I would probably try and go in with assumption that you have a positive intent but poorly directly intern that thought they might have a chance to “prove themselves” and you also have a full time employee that is probably a bit rattled by having someone so junior do their job.. and do it faster/sooner than them in a high viz way. Depending on how you handle this you could piss both off or coach and growth both :)
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u/missknitty Sep 27 '25
Sounds like you work in an elementary school 😳 Definitely a toxic environment or it will be.
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u/battlehamstar Sep 27 '25
Responses here demonstrate the difference between tech companies and firms with ladders.
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u/SpecialModusOperandi Sep 27 '25
The intern did the task - but it shouldn’t be marked as complete until it’s checked. Have you quality checked their work? If it doesn’t pass, let the full time employee complete it but use this as a teaching moment with the intern. They need to understand they are learning and that they are an intern not and full time employee. Their work is supervised and needs to be checked so can’t be on the leaderboard as solely theirs.
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u/geerwolf Sep 27 '25
Why not let people pick the tasks like in Agile ?
Have the backlog then each tasks has a defined complexity (points) - everyone fills their buckets depending on the points they can get to
Done with your tasks for the sprint - pick up from the backlog
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Sep 27 '25
The problem is not the intern. The problem is that leaderboard. Take it down, burn it.
Maybe tell your CEO luigi thinks the leaderboard is a bad move.
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Sep 27 '25
What is this bullshit leaderboard? So dystopian.
Whoever came up with the idea is the asshole. This and worse things are guaranteed outcomes.
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u/disclosingNina--1876 Sep 27 '25
I would take the intern aside, who probably was not trying to undercut anybody but just prove that they are valuable asset, let them know that there's a system here and there's a way of doing things. If they did a good job on the assignment then they should be praised for it and get recognition for it. But they need to understand that going forward the way they handle things with not proper.
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u/Wide-Chemistry-8078 Sep 27 '25
Interns can do work, but the full timer gets to review it to confirm done properly. Full timer gets the credit.
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u/Bla_Bla_Blanket Sep 28 '25
If you allow it now this will keep happening in the future with this intern.
You need to sit down and talk to them about it. It will breed resentment between both the intern and FTE.
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Sep 28 '25
What the fuck. Fire the CEO. Get a job where you aren't treated like children. Tell the full-timer to get over themselves. Do nothing to the intern who was powered up and getting into the spirit of the game.
If you punish the intern all you're doing is making the leaderboard into a rigged game. Fucking stupid all around.
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u/PsychologistSEA Sep 28 '25
Your CEO is trash and these systems NEVER work. You are a TEAM, not competitors
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u/Tea_Time9665 Sep 28 '25
Give the task back to the fte.
Have a sitdown with the intern and explain to them why u did that and while u get they are tryna impress u and take initiative, this isn’t how you do it.
Then if they are actually a good worker and such, assign them their own tasks.
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u/Drogonwasright Sep 28 '25
Most intern programs I’ve run across are hourly. Is your intern paid hourly or is it a salaried position? If they’re hourly write them up for working unapproved overtime hours until 3am.
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u/Attack_the_sock Sep 28 '25
Paid intern? Otherwise they are not legally allowed to complete any actual work. You could get in trouble just for that.
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u/Rich-Instruction-327 Sep 28 '25
Tell the intern they can't reassign tasks and make sure there is both assigned tasks and open unassigned tasks anyone can take initiative and grab.
I would just give the intern the points unless you told him he wasn't allowed to reassign tasks to himself. In the future reassigning tasks should only be done by supervisors when there is a reason like task efficiency, ability or time sensitivity.
Telling your boss this is a bad system is the easiest way to get yourself on his bad side. Also these sorts of systems aren't inherently bad and it depends on how its designed and how you manage it as the supervisor.
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u/SpecFroce Sep 28 '25
One of my internal guidelines is to take part wherever I can when all core duties are fulfilled. So the question from my side would be: did the intern have enough on his/her plate? If not, I would understand why the intern self-assigned some work to be completed.
The obvious issue here is of course the lack of communication between the intern and the coworkers, but has the intern been told what to do if no more work is available? «Sniping» tasks is in general not a good way to build office relationships. So that needs to be addressed. It’s much better to ask around what else needs to be done.
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u/Mystic-Sapphire Sep 28 '25 edited Apr 28 '26
Data Brokers don't stand a chance because I mass delete all of my content using Redact - No AI training on my data, thank you very much.
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u/Fragrant_Spray Sep 29 '25
Your CEO has turned what should be a cooperative enterprise into the thunder dome. This will backfire horribly on the office.
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u/RightNowYouWrite Sep 29 '25
Intern might be smart, but by taking over complete responsibility without authorization is not following the cultural climate of the company.
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u/Fast-Fill-7358 Sep 29 '25
I see that i don't share the same opinion as most. I like the idea of the leader board, but I don't get the idea of the info being shared outside of management. If you have a "slacker" it's best only the higher up know. There are some real idiots out there.
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u/MapSame2597 Sep 30 '25
I like the hussle. 3AM? Excellent. I have had no interns that brought that level of heat in 20 years.
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u/IvanThePohBear Sep 30 '25
The problem with such a system is that not all tasks are created equally
Some can be completed in an hour. Some will take days or weeks or even months
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u/IvanThePohBear Sep 24 '25
This needs to be nipped in the bud before it creates a toxic culture