提高对众包送货员工的财务激励可以改善服务-新东方前途出国

　　Higher financial incentives for crowdsourced delivery workers can improve service

　　提高对众包送货员工的财务激励可以改善服务

　　Nov 21, 2019, 10:26 AM

　　2019年11月21日上午10:26

　　A new paper co-written by a University of Illinois expert who studies operations management says higher financial incentives can boost a host of metrics for crowdsourced delivery workers who act as the final link in the supply chain between retailer and consumer. Yuqian Xu, a professor of business administration at Illinois, studied the online-to-offline crowdsourced platform, also known as the “Uber model” for package fulfillment, and found that a simple targeted incentive mechanism can increase service capacity without incurring additional costs.

　　伊利诺伊大学（University of Illinois）一位研究运营管理的专家联合撰写的一篇新论文说，更高的财务激励措施可以促进一系列衡量众包送货员工的指标，这些员工是零售商和消费者之间供应链的最后一环。伊利诺伊州工商管理学教授徐玉倩（Yuqian Xu）研究了在线到离线众包平台（也称为“Uber模式”）的套餐实现，发现一个简单的有针对性的激励机制可以在不增加额外成本的情况下提高服务能力。 在线咨询

　　The researchers investigated the impact of financial incentives on workers’ working decisions in the crowdsourced delivery setting and the new paradigm of labor in the “last mile” delivery service where the retailer pays a third-party to deliver goods to consumers. Examples include Uber Eats for food delivery, Amazon Flex for package delivery or Shipt for grocery delivery.

　　研究人员调查了在众包交付环境中，财务激励对员工工作决策的影响，以及在“最后一英里”交付服务中，零售商向第三方支付费用以向消费者交付商品的新劳动范式。例如Uber Eats for food delivery、Amazon Flex for package delivery或Shipt for grounder delivery。

　　“This kind of service is the future of work, and the freedom and flexibility that these jobs afford people have attracted more workers to join this industry,” Xu said. “It’s where the global workforce is trending. So you want to have a way to optimize or maximize their performance, and the way to do it is through better financial incentives.”

　　徐说：“这种服务是工作的未来，这些工作提供给人们的自由和灵活性吸引了更多的工人加入这个行业。”“这是全球劳动力的趋势所在。所以，你希望有一种方法来优化或最大化他们的表现，而这样做的方式是通过更好的财务激励。 在线咨询

　　To investigate the issue, Xu and her co-authors analyzed a unique data set from one of the leading online-to-offline platforms in China that provides professional delivery service for over 50 million users. The researchers found that higher financial incentives increase the work probability, work time, delivery distance and delivery frequency of goods for workers.

　　为了调查这个问题，徐和她的合著者分析了中国领先的线上到线下平台中的一个独特的数据集，这个平台为超过5000万用户提供专业的递送服务。研究人员发现，较高的经济激励会增加员工的工作概率、工作时间、送货距离和送货频率。

　　Slightly decreasing the earnings of workers who were in the top 1%, 3% and 5% of earners and redistributing that money to underpaid workers increased the underpaid workers’ service capacity by 14.27%, 24.28% and 31.57%, respectively, according to the researchers.

　　研究人员称，收入最高的1%、3%和5%的工人的收入略有下降，并将这些钱重新分配给收入不足的工人，使收入不足的工人的服务能力分别提高了14.27%、24.28%和31.57%。

　　“Those high-paid workers are still paid at the top 1%, 3% and 5% range on those particular days, so they will still be motivated to work, but we decreased how much they were overpaid and reallocated those extra earnings to underpaid workers, who will work with a little extra financial incentive – and their service capacity responded accordingly.

　　“那些高薪工人在那几天的工资仍然在最高的1%、3%和5%之间，因此他们仍然会有工作的动力，但我们减少了他们的工资过高的数额，并将这些额外收入重新分配给工资过低的工人，他们将在有一点额外经济激励的情况下工作；他们的服务能力也有相应的反应。 在线咨询

　　“The ultimate takeaway message for platform managers is that, by understanding the impact of financial incentives on worker behaviors, a simple targeted monetary incentive mechanism can improve service capacity significantly.”

　　“对平台经理来说，最终的外卖信息是，通过了解财务激励对员工行为的影响，一个简单的有针对性的货币激励机制可以显著提高服务能力。”；

　　In addition, the researchers documented that “income-targeting behavior” is not observed in the crowdsourced delivery setting when compared with the ride-hailing setting.

　　此外，研究人员还证明，与搭车设置相比，众包交付设置中并未观察到“收入目标行为”。

　　“If you’re a ride-share driver, you may have a certain amount of money that you need to make each day, week or month, and then you don’t work much beyond that target,” she said. “Crowdsourced delivery workers aren’t motivated in the same way. A ride-share driver can only fulfill one order at a time and is likely to have higher operating costs – a bigger vehicle that requires more fuel, for starters. A delivery worker can fulfill multiple orders on a single trip with a smaller vehicle, which makes their work and income incentives different from ride-share drivers.”

　　她说：“如果你是一名共乘司机，你可能每天、每周或每月都有一定数额的钱需要赚，然后你的工作不会超出这个目标太多。”。“众包送货人员的动机并不相同。一个共享单车司机一次只能完成一个订单，而且可能会有更高的运营成本&ndash；首先，需要更多燃油的大型车辆。送货员可以用较小的车辆在一次行程中完成多个订单，这使得他们的工作和收入激励措施不同于乘用车司机； 在线咨询

　　For businesses, the paradigm shift in labor represents a new challenge because “now you have less control of your workers,” Xu said.

　　对于企业来说，劳动力模式的转变代表着一个新的挑战，因为“现在你对员工的控制力下降了，”徐说。

　　“In a traditional business setting, management pays a lot of attention to the demand side – they try to understand consumer behavior and then offer different products and services to consumers, because consumer demand is always uncertain,” she said. “And in order to reduce the demand uncertainty, we do a lot of analysis of what consumers want. But now, because of this sharp increase in crowdsourcing platforms, workers have the flexibility to choose when and how often they wish to work, which adds uncertainty to the supply side of the equation.”

　　她说：“在传统的商业环境中，管理层非常关注需求方，他们试图了解消费者的行为，然后向消费者提供不同的产品和服务，因为消费者的需求总是不确定的。”。“为了减少需求的不确定性，我们对消费者的需求做了大量的分析。但是现在，由于众包平台的急剧增加，工人们有灵活的选择他们希望工作的时间和频率，这增加了等式的供给方的不确定性。

　　Businesses that rely on short-term gig workers have to be aware of their worker capacity each day or even each hour level, but also keep an eye on quality control, Xu said.

　　徐说，依赖短期工作人员的企业必须了解他们每天甚至每小时的工作能力，还要注意质量控制。 在线咨询

　　“That will also be a big issue in the future because, again, businesses will have less control of their workers – and they’ll have less control of the quality of service or even the quality of the workers that they’re dealing with,” she said. “Because you have on-demand workers, designing a screening system and then a monitoring service for workers like Uber did for their drivers will become even more important.”

　　她说：“这在未来也将是一个大问题，因为企业对员工的控制力将再次下降，他们对服务质量甚至与之打交道的员工质量的控制力也将下降。”。“因为你有随需应变的员工，设计一个筛选系统，然后像优步那样为员工的司机提供监控服务将变得更加重要。”；

　　But the one factor that can moderate that uncertainty is rewarding good workers.

　　但能缓和这种不确定性的一个因素是奖励优秀员工。

　　“Our findings can help crowdsourced delivery platforms better design their incentive mechanisms going forward,” Xu said.

　　“我们的发现可以帮助众包交付平台更好地设计未来的激励机制，”徐说。

　　Xu’s co-authors are Hongyan Dai of Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing; Baile Lu of Zhejiang University; and Weihua Zhou of Zhejiang University.

　　徐的合著者是北京中央财经大学的戴红艳、浙江大学的陆百乐和浙江大学的周伟华。