I often hear three engagement challenges when it comes to flex or online benefit platforms:
1. My employees do not know what they are being offered
2. My employees do not know how to access their benefits
3. My employees would like to have flexible benefits
These are all related to the technology you choose to use however points 1 and 2 also relate to a change in human behaviour.
A few years ago whilst working in a tech startup and looking at ways to drive user engagement I thought about the stickiest technology product I had used. I landed on Instagram. I found out that the founder, Mike Krieger, had passed through the Standford University's Persuasive Technology Lab which was run by BJ Fogg so I took his course in creating habits and automating beahviour change "Fogg Behavior Model".
Very simply there is model that needs to be satisfied to create a behavior b=mat. See the video below.
- Motivation = needs to be low
- Ability = it needs to be easy
- Prompt = there needs to be a prompt that can easily be acted on
These all need to happen at the same time.
If we go back to my Instagram example:
People were already sharing photos online, but Instagram made it easier (increased ability), more fun (increased motivation) and provided social triggers (seeing friends' photos on Facebook for instance) that encouraged engagement.
I believe following model will satisfy the engagement challenges noted above.
- Motivation - can I choose my own benefits so that they actually add value to me?
- Ability - do I have easy to use technology (during/outside of work, an app)?
- Prompt - do I receive relevant prompts and feedback on my usage aligned to my needs?
When your flexible benefits becomes really successful, it will move onto what BF calls a 'purple path' behaviour:
- Increase the number of triggers leading to the desirable behavior.
- Enhance ability to perform the behavior (make it easier to do)
- Amplify motivation for doing the behavior with intrinsic and extrinsic motivators.
