Why should companies embrace employee competition? The human being loves competing. It is part of our nature. We can compete in anything, sports, board games, dancing, eating as many hot dogs as possible in a certain amount of time… It is our desire of status and success that takes us to feel attracted to competition.

But competition can also make people less collaborative, because each of us want to win individually and it we help others they may be winning. And it also makes those who loose feel frustration.

And so, how can companies encourage employee competition without making them act selfishly and without making those who loose feel like losers? Because competition can also elicit the best of each of your employees. You only have to know how and when to promote competition in the workplace so you are doing it in a healthy manner.

It is essential that, whenever you are encouraging competition in the workplace, the competing teams do not need to collaborate one with another to achieve their goals. When humans are competing to win, we don’t want to help any other competitor and collaborate in their possible victory. We are only focused on winning ourselves, so we better not have to help our rivals, because we will not do it.

Make sure that, whatever competition you may run in your company, those who loose don’t feel frustrated and demotivated. It is important to make it as something fun, to can encourage motivation and the willingness to achieve the goals, but not something that can make your employees feel bad for not winning.

It is also important that, whatever competition you encourage among your employees, you can measure the results of the goals achieved objectively. Make sure those goals are measurable.

Regarding the goals, it is basic that the performance of the competitors is the direct responsible of achieving the final goal. If the goal can depend easily on external factors, the competitors may not feel as involved in the competition, and you want them to be involved and motivated.

And finally, the most obvious, but yet most difficult thing: make sure that the “prize” for winning the competition is something your employees really desire, make sure it is something it is worth fighting for.

If you are in a situation that fulfils all these previous conditions, you are ready to bring in employee competition to your company, getting the best from your employees and avoiding the lack of collaboration or the feeling of demoralization on those who don’t win. Some examples of these situations could be: the first company division that achieves their performance goals of the year, the team that makes the best product innovation suggestion, the company department with the best workplace safety history, the team with the highest rate of punctuality in the morning… So, when employee competition is healthy and doesn’t involve bring out bad attitudes or having bad effects on competitors, is a great way to encourage employees and improve commitment.