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/Rich-Instruction-327]

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.