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The report provides intervention and evaluation designs for two behavioral intervention (BI) trials that, if implemented, would test whether webinar registrations increase when behavioral strategies are applied to emails targeting a given industry. To design the study, researchers followed a six-step process developed by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) for designing and conducting BI studies that has resulted in trials that produce meaningful evidence. These steps include understanding areas where program performance could be improved, diagnosing the potential behavioral bottlenecks in place, and designing interventions that address those bottlenecks and evaluations to learn whether the interventions work.

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Key Takeaways

• Behavioral roadblocks may be preventing employers from ultimately attending Wage and Hour Division (WHD) webinars. Engagement drop-off ranges from the employer not noticing or opening emails about the webinar to the employer forgetting to attend the webinar after they have registered.
• Employers may not respond to emails about webinars because they:
  • Assume the emails are spam
  • Don’t evaluate the information in the email
  • Don’t feel compelled to click through to the webinar
  • Procrastinate or forget the email
• The BI study design consists of a targeted and a national trial to test whether direct emails that use principles of behavioral science are more effective than standard emails at increasing engagement with WHD’s webinars.
  • Behavioral insights include using an engaging subject line, personalization, employing loss aversion, social norms, and reminders.
• The proposed outcomes of the trials would be assessed using an email delivery system and webinar software that can measure open rates and click-through rates by targeted recipients or recipients of a forwarded email.

Citation

Deutsch, J., Gonzalez, N., Maxwell, N. (2020). Behavioral Interventions for Compliance Assistance: Design Report. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

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The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) sponsors independent evaluations and research, primarily conducted by external, third-party contractors in accordance with the Department of Labor Evaluation Policy and CEO’s research development process.