Can Behavioral Science Save the Way We Work?
With the rise of behavioral science, many questions are rising to the surface in regards to its use. Common questions about behavioral science mostly surround its utility as a tool for laypeople.
I am not a scientist, do I need a specific education to understand it?
It sounds complicated, how can I start to use it immediately?
Culture is so complex, can it really shift the way we work?
For today, we’re answering the latter. Yes, behavioral science can and does help design healthier work cultures and, by the way, tends to naturally increase productivity.
Behavioral science is the study of human behavior, including how people think, feel, and act in different situations. By applying behavioral science principles to the workplace, organizations can create a healthier work culture that promotes employee well-being, engagement, and productivity.
Here are a few examples of how behavioral science can be applied to improve work culture:
“Nudging”: Applied Behavior Analysis shows that small, intentional changes in the environment lead to a bigger impact on behavior. By designing the workplace environment to encourage healthy behaviors such as taking breaks or exercising, or, more impact fully, improvements in psychological safety, leadership or growth opportunities, employers can create environments that encourage and support wellbeing and productivity.
Positive reinforcement: Positive reinforcement is a behavioral science principle that suggests meaningfully rewarding desired behaviors can encourage their repetition. Notice the critical use of the word meaningful rewards! Employers can use this principle to create a wellbeing-based work culture by recognizing and rewarding employees with private or public attention, desired tangible items or even escape from undesired tasks like administrative work when they perform at and above expectation.
Social norms: Social norms are simply another way of explaining culture, or the process of rewarding and punishing specific behavior across people, settings and time. By creating a workplace culture that visibly values and demonstrates connection, growth, ethical decision-making, gold-standard leadership, respect for employee time, and dozens of other cultural practices, employers can establish healthy social norms that employees are more likely to follow and benefit from.
Choice architecture: Choice architecture is the design of choices and decision-making processes. By designing workplace policies and practices that make healthy behaviors the default choice, employers can help employees make healthier choices more easily. This can and should include things beyond food choices, such as rewarding employees who take their full vacation, or like one company in Europe, pulling office furniture up to the ceiling and shutting down emails at 5pm to make it nearly impossible to work after hours!
In conclusion, behavioral science can and does help make work culture healthier by applying its principles to create an environment that supports and encourages healthy behaviors. This leads to a more engaged and productive workforce, as well as increased employee well-being and job satisfaction.
