They are essentially pitting employees against each other, because if i sabotage someone else, i have a better shot at winning.
If they did it by saying "everyone that meets this specific standard gets a bonus of X" then i don't think anyone would really complain. But because they are overworking themselves to have a chance to maybe get a prize, it seems unnecessarily exploitative.
Imagine the olympics where there is no gold, silver, bronze. Is it undignified to award the highest performers?
A method that awarded everyone would not lead to productivity gains desired since it skips the competition and motivation. This only applies to manual labor and not to many other careers.
Competition is not undignified or wrong if it is fair and structured properly.
Overworking is optional. It’s something I used to be into when I was young, but not now.
It’s tyrannical if all weee forced to work harder, even if age prevented it.
The Olympics is a competition, not a group of people working towards the same goal. It would be MORE like giving one member or a relay team a gold medal instead of giving it to an entire team when they win.
That's not how a raffle works. You earn tickets which increase your chances of winning. The highest performer isn't necessarily the winner. That also limits how much effort people are going to put into it.
I agree that getting rewarded for actual work performed is strictly better, but in the end the workers get to decide if they want to play that game or not.
> They are essentially pitting employees against each other, because if i sabotage someone else, i have a better shot at winning.
I guess the possibility that warehouse workers are going to sabotage each other and risk getting fired over raffle tickets wasn't considered in the planning. I'm not saying it won't happen, but it sounds far-fetched.
This is a rather short sighted view. In many cases, they either play or they lose out big (either financially or even up to losing their job). For many of those outside tech (and some in tech), losing your job isn’t a risk they are able to take.
These are not exclusive options. Workers can make a decent wage and be incentivized by bonus programs.
I’m not sure how this is undignified or how to have enough dignity in such a program.
It’s a challenge to try to maximize productivity and having elective programs where individuals can choose to put in extra effort than they normally would could certainly be structured in a way that isn’t compulsory and reduces the risk of someone harming themself.
It certainly would award workers who work harder and produce more than others. And there could be valid reasons for lower productivity (ie, poor health) that are outside of worker control. But I think the aim is not to evenly distribute wages across all workers, but to allocate wages to the most productive workers.
Manual labor is a challenge to manage.