How to Improve Digital Awareness and Proficiency in Your Team: hi's Nudges

Friday
June
 
2022

 

In their book *Nudge:Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness* , Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein define a “nudge”as follows:

“A nudge, as we will use the term, is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives. To qualify as a mere nudge, the intervention must be easy and inexpensive to avoid. Nudges are not mandates. Placing fruit at eye level counts as a nudge. Banning junk food does not.”

As is evident from the very words of the authors of nudge theory, the nudging is the mechanism that guides people’s behavior and activities toward the best course of action at that very moment!

This mechanism does not alter people’s free will or decision-making abilities; rather, it becomes a key driver for bringing about change by facilitating the adoption of a specific suggested behavior.

In fact, a nudge can be an important tool for raising awareness and providing training on digital transformation for the members of your team.  Awareness is, in fact, the first step toward an effective change strategy that begins, above all, by listening to people and their needs: so today, in an era of constant change, contextual suggestions and guidance can help people carry out activities and tasks with a positive, lighthearted attitude and great timeliness when the need arises.

How Does a Nudge Work, and What Types Are There?   

But how exactly does a nudge work? For a nudge to be effective—and for it to be designed effectively—it’s best to follow a two-step process:

  1. We must identify the behavior we want to change, guide, or encourage;
  2. By considering the context and the ways in which people make decisions, we need to make an adjustment at that specific moment and in that specific context, thereby guiding the person toward the desired action.

Looking at our daily lives, we’ve come into contact with nudges time and time again, probably without even realizing it. In fact, there are several types of nudges that we can broadly categorize into transparent nudges (those that are recognizable and obvious to people) and non-transparent nudges (those that are “hidden” from individuals). However, in the latter case, this does not mean that they are negative or “unethical” nudges, but rather that they may be less easily detected by individuals.

 

So how can we increase digital awareness and proficiency when it comes to change? Through the nudges provided by habit-inspiring platforms

Nudges and behavioral design, by influencing human behavior, can be a truly effective tool for driving change; their purpose is precisely to improve individual and collective well-being or to have a positive impact within an organization.

An effective use case for nudging is the ability to raise awareness within your team—for example, regarding digital literacy or cybersecurity. Especially in the field of cybersecurity, fostering a mindset and processes that establish a true “culture of security” is essential to ensuring that even the most technical actions are effective. Today, learning takes place in ways and at times that differ from traditional training paths, thanks to contextual learning (which reduces the time gap between training and the actual event) and on-demand access.

The habit-inspiring platform uses nudging techniques to guide people toward a specific behavior, fostering simple, sustainable change over time and thereby creating new—and even more enjoyable—ways of working.