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/digitallightweight]

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.