In today’s tight labour market, companies strive to stay competitive by improving their recruitment strategies, enhancing employee engagement, or expanding their diversity and inclusion.

As difficult as these challenges are, some companies have found an edge over their competitors by including behavioural science insights when developing best Human Resources practices. It has been discovered that businesses see higher results from their efforts by understanding how behavioural science can assist in the company’s approach to everything from organisational culture to the employee experience.

What is Behavioural Science?

In simplest terms - behavioural science is the study of the brain and looks to discover how human psychology works and what the brain needs. According to Hilary Scarlett in a CIPD podcast, a deeper dive into the study emphasises what puts the brain in an excellent place to think, where it can focus and where it is open to knowledge sharing.

But behavioural science is also the study of how emotions, the environment and social factors determine how humans make decisions by incorporating psychology, cognitive neuroscience, economics, law, political science and behavioural aspects of biology into the study.

How Has Behavioural Science Evolved Over the Past Few Years?

Before, when HR professionals met with business leaders to strategise means for maximising internal employee management within the company, decision-making was based on professional expertise and stakeholder interests. But there was a shift in business settings that started in the 90s, including organisational data when strategising; from this emerged people analytics and people analytic teams.

Investment in people analytics has accelerated in 2021 and is only predicted to expand in the coming years. Since 2020, people analytics teams have risen to one person for every 2900 employees, up from one in every 4000 in the preceding 12 months.

But there is also a growing trend to include another factor - scientific research for performance enhancement and development of HR management. Much like doctors need research to help them diagnose or marketing teams need research to put out effective ad campaigns, Human Resources need proven data to make intelligent, business-value decisions. The reason is as observed by Nigel Guenole, Director of Research & Ethics at the Institute of Management at Goldsmiths, University of London:

As it relates to organisational behaviour and HR analytics, the big developments that I am seeing are a heavier focus on some of the psychological attributes that are required for performance. So, what we used to see was that people would recruit against this knowledge, skills, abilities, and psychological attributes that are needed, and then they would forget about it, and it would just sit in a folder somewhere and not be integrated into how we might have development plans for those individuals, post-hire. How we might move those people around the organisations to be better for them and better for the organisation when you are starting to see these self-forming teams and agile working environments, some of this information is really important.

How Can Behavioural Science Be Used in HR Today?

Of the 42% of companies we surveyed who stated they have a data-driven culture utilising people analytics, 90% were confident the work delivers value to the business. Hence when decisions are made more from evidence-based facts that take into consideration human behaviour, companies can make advancements such as with:

Leadership Development 

Giving supervisors, line managers, and even business leaders a firm grasp on how people react to situations through training programs will improve how they guide and direct people at work. This kind of leadership fosters innovation and can improve your overall organisational culture.

Career Development Programs 

Understanding that since most people prefer control and choices, an HR professional can draft self-motivated programs and offer different pathways.

Drafting Work Schedules

Since most people can only focus for 20 minutes, creating work schedules and meetings encouraging designated breaks and offering snacks and hydration to re-energise the brain will improve productivity.

Team Building

Organisations can develop programs that build on diversity and inclusion for better functioning departments by understanding the need for social acceptance, belonging, and relationships.

Employee Engagement 

Learning that people need a sense of purpose with what they do, businesses create a company culture with shared goals that build employee “buy-in”.

Applying Behavioural Science Research in HR

After organisations see how behavioural science can be put into play by developing best HR practices, the next step is implementing it with HR strategies. To do this, there are several tips to fast-track this process. 

• First, work to build on a data-driven organisational culture within the organisation. More effective policies will be put into place by educating and encouraging the mindset to use data-based decision-making for every change implemented.

• Next is to take steps to evaluate a problem and come to a reasonable solution effectively. Though this can take time, we recommend an 8-step process for running a successful people analytics project that drives results.

• Lastly, communicate with all the stakeholders the findings. As a data-driven HR professional, it will be an easy task to tell the story of why and how your result can bring significant business value.

What Are the Benefits of Behavioural Science in HR?

It is common knowledge that far better results can be seen from practices when something is studied and understood. One of the considerable benefits of behavioural science is that it brings the people element back into the equations.

Not much can be accomplished without realising that people are handling the customers, building the products, and moving the company forward.

Every HR professional likely has a story about when they implemented a strategy at the workplace, and they didn’t receive the results they were looking for because it was based on bias or assumptions and not on facts. This likely cost lost time and money and professional embarrassment. 

As observed by Nigel Gueole:

I think one of the big mistakes you can make when you are in HR analytics, or you are an HR team in an organisation, is starting from scratch. Just building the models, trying to identify what do I think the causes of engagement are? What do I think the causes of attrition might be? And then, you just start from scratch; you have a chat to people in your organisation; actually, the literature is full of research on what those drivers are going to be, going back 40, 50 years. You are in a much stronger position if you start there, you start identifying the variables there and then you check whether that holds in your organisation.

Three Examples of Leading Companies Using Behavioural Science as HR Initiatives

Suppose there is still hesitation by stakeholders in using behavioural science in HR. In that case, it might be time to show how some leading companies have already implemented behavioural science in their decision-making for excellent business achievement.

Google 

Google takes an evidence-based approach called “People Operation” to their decision-making. They did this by creating the People Innovation Lab imported and conducting new research to draft the correct hypothesis and conclusions that enriched Google’s practices. It improved on many HR fronts with products that assisted with leadership development, effective teamwork, employee wellbeing, onboarding, and so much more.

Capital One 

Capital One enhanced their leadership effectiveness with their employees by evaluating the scientific evidence on what behaviours were associated with outstanding leadership. They identified 13 behaviours and integrated them into their leadership program for all new managers.

Hani Nabeel, Chief Behavioural Scientist at iPsychTec, described one company he worked with performing a security review of their processes. Deciding to apply behavioural science in their review, they could determine that people process their technology and that people are weak. So, with that understanding, their security review showed that some technology needed changing, and they could execute adjustments to expand their security.

Key Takeaway

Considering that HR is a continuous process of evolvement, mainly human-focused, not building best practices on human nature is like repairing an automobile without understanding how an engine works. It is only logical that connecting behavioural science with HR and the workplace will substantially impact business goals and be essential to develop HR management.

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