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The speculative design, Work to Unlock, aims to amplify Amazon's current gamification strategy to motivate warehouse workers to work even harder. By transforming monotonous tasks into visually-displayed workstation games, this strategy intends to boost productivity and lessen the monotony of repetitive tasks, with game rewards being unlocked through work accomplishments. Workers would be provided with sensor-attached uniforms, and their movement data would then be collected to measure and develop their work performance metrics in terms of steps, calories burned, and heart rate.
Each workstation would be visualized as a game task to be completed with calorie goals and working hours that are impossibly high. Workers are being indoctrinated with the belief that working harder is good for their health and fitness as a result of this gamification.
Work to Unlock
DESIGNER
[anonymized for review]
HOW IT WORKS
The Work to Unlock purposefully exaggerates the gamification rules designed to push a worker's work limit and body tolerance when performing manual labor. In the end, the reward for being unlocked is a mere 5-minute break, emphasizing that when gamification is used, workers would receive fictional rewards that have no real-world value. However, once the workers are persuaded to believe in the game system that the company created, it is easy for them to immerse themselves in the game's rules, which will increase their work productivity for the company's benefit but provide no real value for the workers.
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