A Decision Scientist’s Tips for a COVID-Vaccinated Workplace

Your CEO wants you to vaccinate - now!

Workplaces have shown incredible flexibility in face of COVID and now aim for a new, stable, normal. They believed that vaccines would be the key.  But, as the COVID medical and logistic challenges are being figured out, psychological ones emerge, around vaccinations. It has been this way since day 1, with critical behaviors - masking, maintaining hand hygiene, social distancing, and curbing the size of gatherings - adopted by part of, but not all, the population, and with messages around it being highly conflicted and politicized.

This is where we behavioral scientists can step in with full force, bringing our wisdom borne of decades dealing with improving human choice. Behavioral economists have, for example, influenced more than 15 million (!) Americans to save for retirement. Similar to a vaccination, it was a one-time decision that could change one’s fate, as well as impact society.

While COVID is relatively new, vaccination hesitancy (measles, anyone?) and, relatedly, partial medication adherence, have long been here. With COVID, their damage is even more pronounced, not just to individuals’ health, but to the entire nation. We need a critical mass of people who’ve been vaccinated, in order to get the economy, schools, and life as we know it, back on track.

I'll share my psychological insights, from both research and consulting - from medication to glucometers and anything in between - to help solve the vaccination gap in six steps.

These steps also apply to medication adherence, because otherwise you end up putting a medication reminder app in the hands of people who did not forget to take their medication – they never intended to take it in the first place. You’re welcome.

1.    Segmentize.

To be effective in any marketing message – and getting people to vaccinate is a definite marketing message – you need to know who you’re talking to. And you need to go deep – not just by demographics, but by analyzing motivations, goals, and hang-ups. The Pew Research survey from early December helps us know what we’re up against and where the public stands  - and where your employees might be - in terms of the vaccination.

2.    Remove barriers. Apply design thinking.

This is true for everyone, but this is basically all you have to do for people who want to vaccinate. They are 29% of Americans, and we need to make their life easy in terms of scheduling appointments. Right now, it’s a mess. This mess leads to frustrations and mistrust, even among this group of low hanging fruit, that don’t have any reservations re-vaccination. Design thinking isn’t about making things pretty. It’s about making them intuitive. I mean truly intuitive, not annoyingly confusing and only comprehensible to whoever developed them. My work shows that when we did this, we got people with no digital experience to use a medication adherence app. They loved it! But it took some hand holding, and a careful removal of anything that could get in the way.

Right now, to read comments on FB forums in the US and the UK, is to realize how poor the design is, with people expressing frustration over scheduling and what seem to be dubious or non-transparent priorities.

3.    Provide a temporal anchor.

31% of the U.S. population said they would ‘probably’ vaccinate. They do not have major reservations, but when will they vaccinate? To resume a normal-ish life, speed is of essence. This group needs a nudge toward acting upon their generally favorable attitudes.

 Behavioral economics drives action by suggesting a temporal anchor – a deadline for acting on a specific behavior. This deadline can be made-up, like a Super-Saturday deal at a department store that still gets us excited.

Temporal anchors also work in health. Wharton's @Katherine Milkman gave women magnets reminders that said either "get a mammogram", or "get a mammogram by Thanksgiving". This made-up deadline – clinics do not run out of mammograms after Black Friday – increased breast cancer screening rates.

With COVID, the deadline is vague yet pressing. I propose: “Vaccinate by Valentine’s Day.” When Valentine’s Day is over, we can switch to “Vaccinate by Easter.”

4.    Apply the affect heuristic.

21% of Americans - said they would ‘probably not’ vaccinate. I would tell them to “Vaccinate by Valentine’s Day. Show the Love.” Then switch to “Vaccinate by Easter. Show you Care.”

My ‘show the love’ slogan is based on emotion – a powerful behavioral driver. It can move the needle where other, more rational drivers, fail. The affect heuristic is the tendency to veer toward the option that is more emotionally laden, such as with hope or fear. This heuristic, or mental shortcut, is part of an arsenal of cognitive biases that are wired into us, allowing us to make quick and dirty judgments. We apply these when matters are complicated - like vaccines.

Note how some anti-vaxxers use simple, emotionally-laden language, which is more compelling and easier to understand than scientific arguments. My slogan would be fighting fear with love.

5. KISS: Keep it simple, stupid. But leave out the ‘stupid’.

Speaking of ‘easier to understand’, through my training in psychology and my background in health literacy, I know how crucial this step is. Striking a balance between being scientifically valid and being easily understood is a tough challenge. The CDC tried to meet this challenge with a paragraph on mRNA-based vaccines, like the ones manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

The CDC explanation was between a 10th and 12th grade reading level. Consider that 90 million Americans are at a 6th grade reading level, and you see why this information might go over their heads. Especially since among those most likely to be undecided or unwilling to vaccinate, are people without a degree. To be convinced, people need accurate information, at a readability level that matches their abilities. This should be alongside the scientific terms allowing those who are interested to dig deeper into the facts and figures.

6. Elicit trust.

18% of Americans say they would ‘definitely not’ vaccinate.

This is alarming, but not surprising, as the anti-vax movement is gaining momentum. At the movement’s core lies profound mistrust of both science and the establishment. To realize how deep this runs, consider a sign held by a young protester a few months ago: “Bill Gates, you’ll have to kill me before you vaccinate me!” (talk about emotion…).

And yet, even hard-core anti-vaxxers visit their doctor when they’re ill. When I studied parents’ responses to the FDA warning regarding children’s cough and cold medication, I found that 30% of the parents had little-to-no trust of the FDA or pharmaceutical companies. But, these parents did trust their own doctors.

The COVID conversation neglected this important lever: trust of our own physicians. The ones who slide a chilly stethoscope down our backs and listen to our lungs, cure our sore throats, and care for us and about us. If anything, the pandemic has severed the ties between us and our doctors. I suggest it’s time to bring it back, and get our physicians, not ‘the government’ to urge us to vaccinate. Use them as communicators.

In a work context, the connecting link between employees and the vaccine can be their employer and co-worker - they are closer and perhaps more trustworthy than figures at the state or national level.

 Please share this with anyone who can use it order to get as many people as possible vaccinated. Or more adherent to their medication. Show the love.