In November, BC Behavioural Insights Group (BC BIG) released The First Four Years, a report of the first years of our work. We included case studies of some of the projects we’ve done around the province, including designing better maps to protect mountain caribou, helping British Columbians unemployed due to the pandemic return to work, and improving the management of groundwater in the province.
Over a series of blog posts, we will shine a spotlight on individual projects and invite your questions.
Image by Mohamed Hassan on Pixabay
CASE STUDY SUMMARY
Working with our partners at WorkBC, we designed and tested two emails - one with social norms and the other with a checklist - to let recently unemployed British Columbians know there were valuable job services available. Ultimately, the checklist email performed slightly better and resulted in greater engagement with the content within the email.
The Challenge
The early weeks of COVID-19 saw mass layoffs across British Columbia. The WorkBC program, an initiative of B.C.’s Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, connects job seekers and employers – helping people find jobs, explore career options and improve their skills while maintaining the most comprehensive database of B.C. job postings via their website. WorkBC has a great record of success, but for several reasons, some clients delay applying. In exploratory interviews, we heard that people might not understand what the program is about or what is expected of them after losing their job. We also heard that people sometimes underestimate the popularity of WorkBC.
The Approach
We collaborated with the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction to conduct an email-based randomized controlled trial (RCT). Our goal was to help British Columbians return to work whenever they were ready. We designed two emails: The first presented social norms, introducing the letter with “Join 1000s of British Columbians accessing WorkBC services”. The other included a simple checklist, introducing the letter with “You’re one step away from valuable job resources.” We wanted to know two things: which email works the best—checklist or social norms? And, is email an effective way to support job seekers?
The Results
We found the checklist email performed the best. Compared to the social norms email, people who received the checklist email were more likely to open it (34% vs. 30%), click the link (8% vs. 6%), and submit an online expression of interest (5% vs. 3%). Among this “checklist” group, the conversion rate—the number of people who submitted the form after clicking the link—was high, at 64%. The checklist email also reduced the delay in online form submissions by 1.5 days.
We also found strong evidence that email is an effective way to support job seekers. As shown in the figure below, people who received an email in the first 30 days were three times more likely to enroll in WorkBC than those who received an email afterwards. However, we found no significant difference between checklist and social norm emails—suggesting proactive communication is even more impactful than changes in content.
Behavioural Insights Used
Social norms
By letting people know how many people use the service and find employment, we helped clarify its popularity.
Checklist
By providing a simple checklist, we helped people see how close they were to accessing support.
Behaviourally informed emails using checklists helped British Columbians access job services during a time of crisis. How have you used checklists? Let us know in the comments.