Designing Engagement: validating what motivates a frontline workforce before building

TL;DR

Context: Frubana (B2B marketplace, YC 2019, LATAM). Warehouse employees had no visibility of their own performance; managers relied on manual reports and irregular 1:1 feedback. Productivity had plateaued, customer claims were rising, turnover was a concern.
Role: Product Manager, also leading design.
Team: The warehouse squad: data analyst, tech lead, engineers, product designer and low-code specialists.
Timeline: 6 months
Outcome: +30%productivity: the same tasks done with fewer people+80%best-practice execution, measured against customer claims (PQRs)20%lower operating cost: fewer people needed, fewer complaints75%daily logins: employees checking their own points and metricsLowerturnover, observed after launch

The problem

Warehouse employees did repetitive daily tasks with no clear view of how they were performing or how to progress. Feedback depended on managers, who tracked performance through manual reports and irregular 1:1s, so it was uneven and often late. The business consequences, as stated in the original write-up: stagnant productivity, rising customer claims and high turnover linked to low engagement.

The question for the business was not “how do we add a game?” It was: how do we get the productivity the business needs from people who currently have no reason to care how they perform, and keep them?

My role

Owned: problem framing, the assumption board and its pivot/persevere calls, research plan (24 interviews, ethnographic observation, workshops, team-wide survey), definition of what to measure, and the product and UX of the gamification layer.
Team did: the warehouse squad built it. The tech lead, engineers and low-code specialists delivered the layer inside the internal operations platform; the data analyst ran data and analytics, and the product designer ran usability testing with Maze. I led both streams. It was a collaborative effort.
Impact measurement: I owned measuring the impact once shipped: employee productivity; the effect on customer claims linked to each task; product usage, adoption and engagement (how often people opened the app and checked their points and metrics, time spent, how they navigated); how many people were needed to complete the same volume of tasks before and after gamification; and the cost saved through fewer complaints and fewer people needed to operate.

Key decisions

What do we believe motivates people, and what do we test first?

Build from our own assumptions
Money, recognition, career path.
Test them first
Chosen
Write the assumptions down with success criteria and a pivot or persevere call.

Trade-off: Testing delays building; not testing risks building a points system nobody wants.
Choice: We wrote assumptions on a board, gave each a success criterion (scored out of 10) and an explicit pivot/persevere result.
Why: The board showed which beliefs held. Visible on it: the assumption that mid-managers are motivated like their teams scored PIVOT 4/10 (their motivation comes from leading people and growing in the field, not from perks), while assumptions about employees (benefits, unclear career path, feedback depending on the manager) scored PERSEVERE between 6/10 and 9/10.

Hypothesis board: customer segments and problems on the left, then one column per assumption with success criteria, a pivot or persevere result and the learning. — How I validated assumptions: customer, problem, assumption, success criteria, result, learning. This shows the method and tools, not a business outcome.

Reframe from management control to employee motivation

A performance-tracking dashboard for managers
Faster, and it answers the manager’s reporting problem.
A system the employee sees and owns
Chosen
Needs behavioural design.

Trade-off: The dashboard is faster and answers the manager’s reporting problem but leaves the feedback loop dependent on managers; the employee system needs behavioural design but removes that dependency.
Choice: The second. The brief became: how might we motivate employees and build a relationship with them so they deliver high performance toward business goals?
Why: Research said employees did not know how to improve or measure success, and motivation was tied to recognition and benefits, not just pay. Managers still get reliable data for planning and forecasting.

Which mechanics, and for whom?

Loyalty programs
Training incentives
Point-based systems (benchmarked)
Chosen
Points, rewards and levels tied to mastery and benefits.

Trade-off: Individual points are simple but can demotivate low performers; team rankings add collective motivation but need clear rules.
Choice: Points, rewards, levels tied to mastery and benefits, plus team-based rankings added after usability tests.
Why: Usability tests (Maze, remote and in person) showed the need for simpler rule explanations, larger CTAs for warehouse touchscreens and details on dedicated screens.

Build it into the existing platform

A modular gamification layer inside the internal operations platform
Chosen
Rather than a separate app.

Choice: A modular layer inside the internal operations platform rather than a separate app.

What we shipped

A gamification system inside the internal platform: a real-time view of your own performance, points and rewards for goals, levels linked to mastery and benefits, peer visibility and team rankings, profile history so people can see their growth, and a manager view with reliable data to plan, measure and forecast productivity.

Game screen: a personal challenge with reward tiers and a warehouse challenge with a progress bar. — Dashboard and achievements: what each employee sees about their own day. It explains the decision to give the employee, not the manager, the feedback loop. Interface in Spanish; callouts translate the key labels.
1Personal challenge: coins added for every action done correctly during the day.
2Reward tiers: the coin count unlocks a payout at each level.
3Warehouse challenge: the team earns diamonds for each customer served and loses them for each customer affected by quality issues or missing items.
4Progress bar toward the team goal.

Team rankings screen: weekly top three and rankings by coins and by productivity. — Team rankings, added after usability tests. They add collective motivation on top of individual points. Interface in Spanish; callouts translate the key labels.
1Switch between two operational areas, Picking and Anclaje.
2The weekly top three, with the week selectable above.
3Ranking by coins earned.
4Ranking by productivity.

Profile and bonus history: each person sees where they stand and what they earned week by week, so progress is visible without waiting for a manager. Names and figures are mock data. Interface in Spanish; callouts translate the key labels.

1Who the employee is and how long they have been on the team.
2Their position in the game: personal and warehouse standing, plus missing and quality tickets.
3Switch between personal details and bonus history.
4A reminder that all amounts are shown before tax withholdings.
5Bonus earned each week, so a missed week is visible next to a paid one.

Research synthesis board: buyer personas for three countries, then pains and wins grouped by process, leadership and organisation. — Research synthesis: buyer personas by country, then pains and wins grouped by process, leadership and organisation. It supports the decision to reframe the brief around the employee. Interface in Spanish; callouts translate the key labels.

Results

Results of Designing Engagement
Metric	Result	How it was measured
Daily logins	75%	Product usage analytics: how often employees opened the app and checked their points and metrics.
Productivity	+30%	People needed to complete the same volume of tasks, before vs. after gamification.
Best-practice execution	+80%	Time and result of each task, checked against the customer requests, complaints and claims (PQRs) linked to that task.
Cost optimisation	20%	Lower operating cost from the productivity gain (fewer people needed for the same work) and fewer customer complaints.
Turnover	Dropped	Observed after launch, not a controlled result: employees could see their own performance and had a reason to stay motivated.

Daily logins
75%
How it was measured
Product usage analytics: how often employees opened the app and checked their points and metrics.
Productivity
+30%
How it was measured
People needed to complete the same volume of tasks, before vs. after gamification.
Best-practice execution
+80%
How it was measured
Time and result of each task, checked against the customer requests, complaints and claims (PQRs) linked to that task.
Cost optimisation
20%
How it was measured
Lower operating cost from the productivity gain (fewer people needed for the same work) and fewer customer complaints.
Turnover
Dropped
How it was measured
Observed after launch, not a controlled result: employees could see their own performance and had a reason to stay motivated.

Qualitative, from a team survey and interviews: employees reported feeling seen and motivated; managers gained clear, real-time performance insight.

Scale context, not an outcome of this project: Frubana was scaling from about $10K to $1M USD in daily sales across 17 warehouses in three countries.

What I learned

Sustainable motivation came from clarity, autonomy and fairness, not from incentives alone. “When people understand their progress, performance turns into pride.”
The pivot on mid-managers mattered: the people who manage the frontline are a second user with different motivations.

Transferable to any workforce platform (rostering, timesheets, payroll self-service) where frontline employees need to see their own data, and where retention and productivity depend on engagement rather than on manager reporting.