Seasons & ResetsOctober 3, 202615 min read

Workplace Leaderboards: Why Resets Keep Recognition Fun

Permanent recognition leaderboards put the same people on top and discourage everyone else. Here's what the research says, and why resets keep recognition fun.

Introduction

Picture a company leaderboard in its sixth month.

The same three names sit at the top. They've been there since week two. Everyone else is so far behind that catching up isn't realistic, so most people have stopped checking. A new hire joins, looks at the board, sees thousands of points they'll never match, and quietly decides it isn't for them.

Meanwhile, the people at the top aren't exactly thrilled either. They've built an unreachable lead, so there's no tension left. They coast.

That's the leaderboard problem. A permanent ranking starts as a fun way to make recognition visible and ends up as a scoreboard for people who started first.

The fix isn't to ditch the game. It's to give it an ending, then a new beginning. We call these seasons.

In this post, we look at what research says about leaderboards, why permanent rankings tend to go stale, and why seasons (with fresh teams, new names, and new themes) bring the energy back. We'll also be upfront about what the research does and doesn't prove.

What Leaderboards Are Good At (and Where They Go Wrong)

Let's be fair to leaderboards first. They make progress visible, they add a bit of friendly competition, and they can turn recognition from an occasional gesture into something people talk about.

The research is cautiously positive. A well-known literature review by Hamari, Koivisto, and Sarsa found that gamification generally produces positive effects, but those effects depend heavily on the context and on the users involved.

"It depends" is the key phrase. And one of the biggest things it depends on is where you sit on the board.

Where you rank changes how you feel

A CHI 2017 study by Jia and colleagues found that a person's position on the leaderboard had important effects on how they perceived both the leaderboard and the app around it. Participants rated leaderboards most favorably in fitness apps and least favorably in social networking contexts, and more extraverted people were more positive regardless of rank.

In other words, the same board can feel motivating to one person and discouraging to the next.

Rank feedback can hurt the people lower down

The most striking workplace evidence comes from economist Iwan Barankay. In a three-year randomized experiment with 1,754 furniture salespeople, some employees kept seeing their ranking while others had it removed. Removing rank feedback increased sales by about 11%.

According to a Knowledge at Wharton write-up, the effect was driven mainly by lower-ranked performers. Those who learned they ranked lower than they expected often disengaged, gave up, or became complacent. The company ended up removing the ranking display.

An important caveat: this was a sales environment with competitive stakes, not a recognition program. It doesn't prove that every leaderboard backfires. But it shows how a public ranking can demotivate the very people you most want to engage.

The top can go stale too

The opposite problem shows up near the top. In a 2023 experiment published in Internet Research, Na and Han had 111 students compete in a gamified task across five rounds, with leaderboard positions manipulated to be consistently high or consistently low. Participants in top positions showed complacent behavior, doing the easy point-earning actions and reducing the harder, more meaningful work.

The same study found something more nuanced about the bottom: low-ranked participants actually increased their effort across rounds. But the researchers noted that neither type of motivation appeared to be intrinsic. It was driven by ego and the need to restore a sense of competence, not by enjoyment.

So the research doesn't say "leaderboards are bad." It says something more useful: a ranking that never changes tends to produce complacency at the top, discouragement at the bottom, and motivation that's more about status than the work itself.

The "rich get richer" effect

Sociologists call this pattern the Matthew effect, a term coined by Robert K. Merton in 1968 for the tendency of people to accumulate advantage in proportion to their initial advantages. An all-time leaderboard is a textbook case. Early adopters bank points, and late joiners can never catch up.

Why This Matters More for Recognition

Recognition isn't like sales. The point isn't to find the "best" employee. It's to make people feel seen, valued, and connected.

Gallup has long cautioned that employee-of-the-month style programs fail when winners rotate arbitrarily or repeat constantly, and that unearned praise breeds cynicism. A permanent leaderboard has the same risk: the same people win over and over.

Gallup and Workhuman's research also describes equitable recognition as one of five pillars of strategic recognition, meaning it should be distributed fairly across age, race, gender, and seniority. A board where early or highly visible people dominate permanently works against that.

And remember, most workplaces are already short on recognition. Gallup and Workhuman found that only 22% of employees say they get the right amount of recognition for their work. If your game makes 80% of people feel they can't win, it can end up reducing the thing you set out to increase.

The Case for Seasons

A season is simple: a leaderboard runs for a set period, the results are celebrated, and then it resets and a new one begins.

Games have used this for years. When Riot Games reworked its ranked system for 2025, it said the changes were meant to address "ranked fatigue" and constant grinding and to make climbing feel enjoyable rather than painful or daunting. Seasonal ladders give everyone, including returning and new players, a fresh shot.

Here's why it makes sense for recognition.

1. Seasons give everyone a fresh start

Behavioral scientists have a name for what a reset does. In a Management Science paper, Hengchen Dai, Katherine Milkman, and Jason Riis found that Google searches for "diet," gym visits, and new goal commitments all rise after temporal landmarks, such as the start of a week, month, year, semester, or a birthday. They call it the fresh start effect.

Their explanation is that landmarks create new "mental accounting periods." They push past imperfections into a previous period and prompt people to take a big-picture view, which motivates aspirational behavior.

Applied to recognition: a new season is a landmark. Someone who finished last season near the bottom (or missed it entirely) gets a clean slate. The past stays in the past.

2. Seasons stop the lead from becoming permanent

When the board resets, last season's champion starts at zero like everybody else. That addresses the Matthew effect directly. The people at the top have to keep earning it, and newcomers aren't locked out by months of accumulated points.

3. Seasons bring the novelty back

Gamification has a novelty problem. A 14-week longitudinal study of 756 students by Rodrigues and colleagues found that gamification's effect followed a U-shaped curve: engagement dropped after about four weeks (the novelty effect) before recovering as people got familiar with the system and found ongoing value in it.

That study was about university courses, not workplaces, so don't read it as a rule for recognition programs. But it supports a simple idea: engagement with a game system isn't flat. A regular reset, with a new look and a new set of goals, is a natural way to refresh things before the novelty fades. (That's our inference, not something the study tested.)

4. Seasons give you a built-in moment to celebrate

A season has an ending, and endings are good for recognition. You can celebrate the top contributors, call out surprising stories, and thank the people whose effort never reached the podium. A permanent leaderboard has no natural moment for that.

Why New Teams, New Names, and New Themes Matter

Resetting points is only half of what makes seasons work in KaBoon. Each new season is also a chance to start with a new setup: choose new teams, pick new names, and choose a new theme.

That's not decoration. There's solid research behind the value of choice.

A meta-analysis by Erika Patall, Harris Cooper, and Jorgianne Robinson covering 41 studies found that providing choice enhanced intrinsic motivation, effort, task performance, and perceived competence, among other outcomes. People are more invested in things they had a hand in shaping.

Those studies weren't about leaderboards, so we can't claim they prove the point for recognition games. But the logic carries over. Here's what each choice does:

New teams. When teams are re-formed each season, the same groups don't compete against each other forever. People get to work with new colleagues, and cross-department connections form. A weaker team last season isn't branded as weak this season. It's also a way to keep teams roughly balanced.

New names. Letting a team or person pick a new name each season is a small act of ownership. It's also just fun. Team names become inside jokes, and last season's name can stay in the history books while this season's starts fresh.

New themes. A new theme changes the look and feel of the whole competition. It gives the season an identity, like "the summer sprint" or "the spooky season." It also helps people tell one season from another, which makes the memories stick.

Together, these make each season feel like a new game, not just the same game with a reset counter.

How to Run a Good Season

The research doesn't give a formula for how long a season should be or what rewards to attach. What follows is practical advice based on the principles above, so adapt it to your team.

Match the season length to your rhythm. Long enough for people to build momentum, short enough that a bad start doesn't feel permanent. Many teams align seasons with quarters, campaigns, or natural business cycles.

Make the ending a real event. Announce the results, share highlights, and thank people. Include stories and nominations, not only the totals.

Preserve the history. Reset the ranking, not the record. Keep a hall of fame or archive of past seasons so earlier recognition isn't erased.

Recognize effort and values, not just volume. Gallup's guidance is that recognition should be specific, genuine, and tied to purpose. If points reward whoever posts the most, you'll get volume, not meaning.

Keep it away from performance reviews and pay. A recognition game that feeds directly into ratings or compensation can turn friendly competition into stress, and echoes what Barankay's study found about rank in competitive contexts.

Welcome people who join mid-season. Make sure they can participate meaningfully straight away, not just watch.

Make participation feel safe. Highlight team progress and personal improvement alongside the rankings, so people in the middle aren't invisible.

Ask for feedback after each season. Seasons are an opportunity to adjust. Ask what people liked, what felt unfair, and what they want next.

Common Mistakes With Workplace Leaderboards

Running one never-ending leaderboard. This is the core problem. It locks in the Matthew effect and makes the game feel closed to latecomers.

Showing the full ranking to everyone. Public lists from first to last place can embarrass people at the bottom. The Barankay study suggests unfavorable rankings can lead to disengagement.

Rewarding quantity over quality. It encourages gaming the system, which fits the complacent, easy-points behavior Na and Han observed.

Resetting without celebrating. If a season just vanishes, you lose the best part: the recognition moment.

Resetting so aggressively that nothing feels like progress. Players in games sometimes complain when resets erase their sense of progression. The goal is a fresh start, not a loss of everything. Keep a record of past achievements.

Treating gamification as a substitute for real recognition. A game can make recognition more fun and visible. It can't replace specific, sincere appreciation from managers and peers.

How Seasons Work in KaBoon

KaBoon is built around the idea that recognition should be fun and fair, so seasons are part of how it works.

The leaderboard resets each season, so no one holds a permanent lead and no one is locked out.
Each season, you choose new teams, so groups mix and rivalries stay fresh.
You pick new names, so people feel ownership over their team's identity.
You choose a new theme, so every season looks and feels different.

The result is recognition that stays energizing instead of turning into a ranking of who started first.

See how KaBoon seasons work →

Frequently Asked Questions

Do leaderboards work in the workplace?

They can, but it depends on the context and the people. A literature review by Hamari and colleagues found that gamification generally has positive effects, but they depend heavily on context and users. Permanent public rankings carry the risk of discouraging people lower down.

Can leaderboards demotivate employees?

Yes. In a randomized experiment with 1,754 salespeople, removing rank feedback increased sales by about 11%. The effect was driven mainly by lower-ranked employees. That was a sales setting, so results may differ for recognition programs.

What is a leaderboard reset?

A reset clears the rankings at the end of a set period, called a season, so everyone starts again at zero. Past achievements can still be kept on record.

How often should you reset a recognition leaderboard?

There's no research-backed answer. Pick a length that gives people time to build momentum but doesn't make a bad start feel permanent, and adjust based on feedback.

What is the fresh start effect?

It's a pattern where people are more motivated to pursue goals after temporal landmarks such as a new week, month, or year. Researchers found that Google searches for "diet," gym visits, and goal commitments all rise after such landmarks.

Is gamified recognition good for company culture?

It can be, if it's fair, inclusive, and tied to real values. Gallup and Workhuman's research says recognition should be fulfilling, authentic, personalized, equitable, and embedded in culture. A game should support those, not replace them.

Why let people choose their own team names and themes?

Research suggests choice improves motivation. A meta-analysis of 41 studies found that choice enhanced intrinsic motivation, effort, performance, and perceived competence. Those studies weren't specific to leaderboards, but the principle applies.

The Bottom Line

Leaderboards aren't the problem. Leaderboards that never end are.

Without resets, a leaderboard rewards whoever started first, discourages latecomers, and lets the leaders coast. Seasons fix that by giving everyone a fresh start, bringing back novelty, and creating natural moments to celebrate.

Add the freedom to choose new teams, new names, and new themes, and every season becomes a new reason to join in.

To be clear about the evidence: no study we found directly tests seasonal resets on workplace recognition leaderboards. The case here is built from related research on leaderboards, fresh starts, and choice, and from how games have run seasons for years. Treat it as a well-supported design principle, and test it with your own team.

Make Recognition Fun, Fair, and Fresh

KaBoon makes recognition easy and visible for teams of any size. Peer-to-peer recognition, manager appreciation, and values-driven awards all live in one place, and seasons keep it feeling new, with fresh teams, names, and themes every time.

Try KaBoon free for 30 days →