A program where Amazon drivers can compete to win prizes like TVs and motorcycles reportedly has a 15,000-person waitlist in India

Heather Schlitz
Updated ·2 min read
delivery driver
Amazon is recruiting people with their own vehicles to deliver packages for the company's Flex program. MONEY SHARMA/Getty Images

  • In India, Amazon's part-time Flex program gamifies delivery driving, Rest of World reports.

  • Amazon drivers compete to win prizes, like phones, motorcycles, and gift cards.

  • The program incentivizes drivers to work during holidays and reportedly has a 15,000 person waitlist.

Amazon is luring drivers into its part-time Flex program in India with the promise of phones, motorcycles, gift cards, and bonuses as a reward for spending more hours driving, Rest of World reported.

The 30-day program, called Delivery Premier League, pays drivers 25 rupees, or $2 an hour, and offers extra rewards as an incentive for racking up additional hours on the road. Rest of World reported that the program is in place to attract drivers during annual holiday season sales and periods of bad weather to maintain fast delivery speeds.

The program's design, inspired by the Indian Premier League cricket event, highlights how Amazon experiments with ways to incentivize workers and attract new hires.

"Customers want superfast deliveries, having Flex to manage that volatility in volume was great for us," Prakash Rochlani, the director of last-mile logistics for Amazon India, told Rest of World.

The program operates in 65 cities in India and has a 15,000-person waitlist, sources told Rest of World. The system reportedly has a leaderboard that tracks how many hours top-performing drivers work. Amazon did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Amazon has also rolled out gamification in some of its US warehouses, where programs with a video game-like aesthetic track how much employees work compared to others, with the highest-scoring workers receiving Amazon-branded merchandise.

Integrating games into the workplace can increase motivation, make work more fun, and generate competition, although success from gamification often depends on how well the game is designed.

The Youtube channel Your Driver Mike said Amazon Flex also offered a rewards system in the US, but that the biggest lure of the program was the hourly pay.

"I can work at my own pace because I'm guaranteed an hourly rate," he said.

While Amazon is constantly looking to hire to keep ahead of turnover, Amazon has also come under fire for its treatment of drivers in the US, where delivery drivers have reported that they've had to pee in water bottles in order to finish deliveries on time, and one driver reporting that she had to change her pads in the back of delivery vans while on her period.

Read more about Amazon's Delivery Premier League at Rest of World.

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