In December 2024 we explored three psychological reasons why clients and colleagues don’t take actions following research debriefs.

This month’s new article draws on further psychology insights and provides three simple tips to help ensure your research recommendations are acted on.

In summary, the three tips are:

1.     Ensure recommendations are easy to action

2.     Ensure the negative consequences of not acting are communicated clearly

3.     Ensure the behaviour of others is highlighted for additional persuasion

Let’s get started with tip one…

1. Ensure recommendations are easy to action

The first tip is to make sure the things you want your clients or colleagues to do are easy.

Why is this important?

In short, behavioural economics tells us humans are hard-wired to favour the easy option wherever possible.

Because of this, many well-known behaviour change frameworks champion the importance of making things easy.

Take for example the UK government framework EAST. This contains four tips for influencing behaviour – the very first of which is to “Make the target behaviour easy”.

What’s the evidence for the importance of making things easy?

First, a well-known example comes from pension saving.

Around a decade ago, the UK government wanted to tackle the problem of not enough people saving into pensions.

Essentially, they bet that by providing an easy option – in this case automatically enrolling people into schemes, unless they actively opted out – they could significantly boost the number of savers.

And it worked: enrolment in pensions in the UK grew from 55% in 2012 to 87% in 2018.

That’s all very well but are we also influenced by ease in our professional lives?

It would seem so, yes.

Take for example a study by the Dutch government. This aimed to encourage businesses to download a report on their energy efficiency.  

In this study, a threefold increase in the rate of report downloads was seen…simply through a shorter than previously used email, with crucially, just one less mouse click required.

Therefore, if you want clients or colleagues to act on your research recommendations, the first tip is to ensure they are easy to action.

Finally, please note this is all about thinking about the various logistical challenges of what your client or colleague would need to do. It is distinct from ensuring research insights or recommendations are easy to understand (although this is also an important consideration – please see tip 2 in this article for more details on ways to do this).

2. Ensure the negative consequences of not acting are communicated clearly

The second tip for ensuring your clients and colleagues act on your research recommendations is to make sure the negative consequences of not acting are communicated clearly.

Why is this important?

Behavioural economics also tells us humans have a strong desire to make sense of situations. This often entails looking for connections between variables, even when they don’t exist.  

Due to this desire to understand how the world works, informing people of the consequences associated with a behaviour is an important and powerful tool for persuasion in the behaviour change literature.

What’s the evidence for this?

Let’s take a public health example: smoking. While multiple different interventions have contributed, informing people of the negative consequences of smoking has been a key contributor to a significant decrease in smoking rates in the UK since 1950.

Ok, but are we also influenced by information about consequences in our professional lives?

Yes.

In one recent study based on 56,310 businesses in the Dominican Republic, the government wanted to improve the tax compliance of businesses.

The study found that by sharing information about the consequences of businesses not taking action (prison sentences, the public disclosure of evasion etc), tax revenue could be increased by $184 million.

Therefore, if you want clients or colleagues to act on your research recommendations, ensure the negative consequences of not acting are communicated clearly.  

This could for example entail describing threats to the business’ competitive position associated with inertia. Of course, using consequences and language the business really gets (e.g. financial consequences) is likely to be especially powerful.

3. Ensure the behaviour of others is highlighted for additional persuasion

The final tip for driving action is to highlight the behaviour of others.

Why is this important?

Behavioural economics research shows that referring to what others do can encourage people to do the same.

What’s the evidence here?

Let’s take another financial example. In one study, when people were told in letters from HMRC that most others pay their tax on time, it significantly increased payment rates.

But again, is the influence of others important in professional settings?

Let’s take doctors this time. Surely they can’t be affected by others’ behaviour?

Well, it turns out they can.

One study wanted to understand if prescriptions of antibiotics by GPs in England could be reduced, given unnecessary antibiotic prescribing contributes to antimicrobial resistance.

An intervention group received a letter stating the practice was prescribing at a higher rate than 80% of practices in local area – while a control group received nothing.

The difference in prescribing rate between the two groups was highly statistically significant. Those told about others’ prescribing dispensed an estimated 73,406 fewer antibiotic items.

Therefore, the final tip for encouraging clients or colleagues to act on your research recommendations is to ensure you highlight the behaviour of others.  

What does this mean in practice? One valuable approach could be to provide information on successful organisations in the same – or other – sectors, and how they are doing the same actions you are recommending.

Conclusion

This article has presented three tips to ensure clients and colleagues act on your research recommendations.

The three tips are to make sure:

1.     Recommendations are easy to action

2.     The negative consequences of not acting are communicated clearly

3.     The behaviour of others is highlighted for additional persuasion

To learn more about how to influence the behaviour of clients and colleagues – plus other groups like consumers, citizens, physicians and patients – request our free guide to behaviour change frameworks and models.