Flexible working ‘double nudge’

  • 2019
Challenge

Lack of flexible working is a barrier for many in finding work, particularly women.

Insight

Choice architecture refers to the context in which decisions are made. Changing the choice architecture by, for example, changing how options are presented can have a big impact on people’s behaviour.

Changing the choice architecture of job adverts by offering employers an easy way to indicate flexibility could increase the number of flexible-working jobs on offer. By prompting employers to consider flexible working as an option at a timely moment (i.e. at the moment of job advert creation), we believed we could boost the number of flexible jobs on offer.

Employers can be nudged to make a deliberate decision about whether to explicitly mention flexibility when creating job adverts.

Approach

We tested whether giving employers job advert templates with easy options to include flexibility (the choice architecture) would prompt more flexible working options.

Result & Impact

The prompt increased the number of jobs advertised as flexible by 20 per cent (from 34.5 per cent to 41.5 per cent).

Design and development by Soapbox.