Nudging in the Workplace: Increasing Attendance at Employee Socialisation Events

Abstract

Organisations often invest significant resources in promoting employee well-being, yet attendance at well-being events is typically low. Using a randomised control trial, we test whether four behaviourally informed nudges targeting event registrations – simplification, simplification plus changing the messenger, simplification plus social proof, and setting a default – influence the decision of 6,998 public sector employees in Ireland to register for, and attend, three virtual worker well-being events. We find evidence that nudges are effective at increasing the registration rate. The default nudge is the most effective – automatically pre-registering employees increases registration rates by 90 percentage points versus the control. Combining simplification with the provision of either a social proof nudge or a changing the messenger nudge increases registration rates by 2.2 and 2.7 percentage points respectively. The results also reveal a large intention-behaviour gap, with the majority of registrations failing to translate into attendance. Only the simplification plus messenger nudge and the default nudge were effective at boosting attendance at the events conditional on registration. These results caution against organisations relying exclusively on nudges to boost attendance at worker wellbeing events.