Peer comparisons prompt workers to pick up the pace

Want to boost productivity in your warehouse or DC? According to researchers at the London School of Economics, maybe all you need to do is tell associates where they stand relative to their co-workers.

In their paper "Tournaments Without Prizes: Evidence From Personnel Records," researchers Jordi Blanes i Vidal and Mareike Nossol outline how a German wholesaler saw warehouse workers' average productivity jump 6.8 percent after it began privately informing them of how they ranked among their peers on pay and performance.

"We find that merely providing this information leads to a large and long-lasting increase in productivity that is costless to the firm," the researchers wrote.