Economic Rockstar Podcast: Joe Gladstone

Twitter Project: Psychology of Social Media

Earlier this year I completed a project for Twitter, the social media website.  The project involved designing a series of online experiments to investigate the psychology underlying behaviour on Twitter by consumers.  The experiments demonstrated how the number of followers and the content of tweets and bio pages influenced consumer's perception of businesses.

Full report here: http://usblog.isobar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Isobar-Twitter-White-Paper.pdf

Public Lecture: The Behavioural Economics of Everyday Life

I'm giving a public lecture on the 22nd of January on "The Behavioural Economics of Everyday Life", where I will discuss the latest scientific evidence on how insights from this field can be applied by individuals to improve their wellbeing and life outcomes. Topics covered will include how to be happier, improve your finances, reach personal goals and be healthier. 

http://www.howtoacademy.com/psychology/behavioural-economics-everyday-life-4012?fromcat=24

Date: 22nd January 2014
Location: CNCFD- Condé Nast College of Fashion & Design, 16-17 Greek Street, Soho, London W1D 4DR.

Time: 6.30-8pm

Price: £40

Forbes Magazine - Interview on Behavioural Science and Managerial Decision Making

I've posted below an interview I gave to Forbes Magazine in November in which I discuss how managerial experience is over-rated in comparison to evidence, and give an outline of applying behavioural economics to business more broadly.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/clarebettelley/2014/11/13/management-experience-is-overrated-heres-why/

Why HR professionals need behavioural economics

Understanding what motivates employees is fundamental to what an HR professional does. Yet, for decades, they have used the same superficial frameworks to model ways that staff evaluate information and make decisions, ignoring decades of evolving scientific research.

The recent surge of interest in behavioural economics , which draws insights from psychology and economics to help explain how people make choices, means that the old ways of doing things in HR are over.

Employers, such as Google, are gobbling up expertise in this area to apply to their HR department, or ‘people operations’, as it prefers to call it. This is because the field has produced remarkable insights into how to effectively design and communicate employee benefits plans and motivation schemes .

Motivate and retain staff

Examples include how to motivate and retain employees without raising costs. Economics tells us that staff put in more effort only if they are compensated with higher wages . Surprisingly though, financial incentives can actually undermine personal motivation. Rewards are powerful when they make employees feel valued, and give them a sense of progression.

Another example is how to optimise the communication of employee benefits . ‘Choice architecture’ (how various options are framed, ordered, and described) is an effective technique to engage employees. For example, having too many options can create decision-making paralysis. HR and benefits professionals should limit them to make the choices they offer meaningful and differentiated, not overwhelming.

Stop wasting time and money on employee research

Surveys and interviews, widely used by HR and benefits professionals to decide which benefits to offer, are premised on staff being consciously aware of what they want. This is rarely the case. Only a controlled experiment can offer adequate answers to many of these questions.

As results from behavioural economics continue to spread out of dusty journals and into the public sphere, HR professionals need to be at the forefront of engaging with this new science or else risk being left behind. 

First, they need to realise that they are not intuitive psychologists, and that years of experience rarely trump insight gained from thorough experimentation. Second, they should also read a range of useful books. A particular favourite is Thinking Fast and Slow by Nobel Laureate, Daniel Kahneman.

Recognise when help is required

Third, they need to recognise when they need external help. A cost-efficient method can be to engage industry specialists or academics to offer training sessions and/or to consult on key questions.

Organisations have spent decades meticulously studying customer behaviour. It’s time they applied the same energy to understanding their employees. People operations departments are just the beginning; the new race is to understand human behaviour.

(This post originally appeared on the Employee Benefits website)

Facebook Likes - Do They Matter?

A podcast exploring the degree to which Facebook Likes matter on company Facebook pages. Should a company spend money to invest in a larger number of likes? At what point is enough enough, 10 Likes? A million Likes?

The podcast is based on research undertaken with my colleague Jon Jachimowicz using Amazons' Mechanical Turk.

Behavioural Science and 'Pay What You Want' Pricing

Here is an interview I gave on the 23rd of July (2014) on how the rise of Pay What You Want systems of pricing for products or services can be explained by insights from behavioural science. The interview was for the BBC World Business Report program.