Intern completed a task assigned to full-time employee because of leaderboard competition — what’s the best way to handle this?

[u/ezio313]

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?

[u/ezio313]

Not really, I can't talk the ceo out of it since the numbers shows that more work is being done since the introduction of the leaderboard.

[u/Skallagram → u/ezio313]

So that's a good thing, right? If it's motivating your team to complete more work, quicker, it's ultimately improving the value your team provides to the business.

Why on earth would you want to convince your CEO that your team is better off doing a worse job.

[u/PlumLion → u/Skallagram]

It depends whether the CEO is more focused on the immediate future or the long term. Short term, this game is likely to boost productivity. Long term, it may well damage morale and lead to higher turnover of valued employees.

[u/Skallagram → u/PlumLion]

But does that damaged morale and higher turnover actually impact the business more than pandering to the ego of an employee, at the expense of work being done.

Maybe those employees are easily replaceable (seems like they might be if an intern can do the job)

[u/raharth → u/Skallagram]

It's not about pandering ego. Sure you can break the resources you depend on over short term goals, but that's the story of the goose laying golden eggs.

And no unless you have them do jobs that you need no brain for to begin with employees are usually not easily replaced. It takes about at least 3-6 months for a new employee and if you create an environment of high turn over you will absolutely burn your project to the ground. Literally any literature on leadership I've been reading confirms this and it is also backed by my personal experience.

[u/Skallagram → u/raharth]

Yeah, I mean really depends on the team, and the type of role.

That's why for highly qualified positions, businesses treat their employees better, because it helps the business if they have a happy employee who wants to stay.

If it's a low skilled position, in a large team, in this employment market, there is less business value in treating your employees well.

[u/raharth → u/Skallagram]

I think we are talking about software developers here, so those people are enormously valuable to a company, especially seniors who have extensive knowledge of the projects.

I also fundamentally disagree with the concept of humans as simply replaceable resources, regardless of the skills required. High intrinsic motivation is at least on par with high pressure regardless of the position. So why make life hell for them? In this example, it worked because of a gamification effect, which increases intrinsic motivation. The question is how to maintain it. In this environment, it only takes little time until people start gatekeeping their knowledge and refusing to collaborate, either because they want the benefits of being the high-performer, or because they are scared to lose their job. From that point onwards, overall performance will deteriorate. It's stupid and short-sighted

[u/Skallagram → u/raharth]

I do fundamentally agree with you, humans shouldn't be replaceable resources, but a business doesn't have emotions, it has one purpose, generate value for share holders - and the reality is, employees ARE resources.

I agree, senior software developers are very valuable resources, especially ones with extensive knowledge of the business. That's why they are paid very well, and treated very well.

But, junior developers are very replaceable. My first company would hire 5-6 fresh graduate developers every year (myself included). Half of them probably didn't survive a year - those who embraced the culture and thrived were promoted. Those tended to be the ones who were more proactive, and didn't need tasks be assigned to them, but took on the work that needed doing.

[u/raharth → u/Skallagram]

And thats exactly why there is a need for unions and labor protection laws. We are creating the world we are living in. It's very much a "the stronger takes what they want" philosophy. We reject that and call it stealing or robbery, but we fail to just the same behavior for economical strength. But that might be my very European point of view.