Leaders and organizations institute and then push new programs, policies, and initiatives. They spread the word and encourage people to get behind the effort.
Sometimes, they even create internal campaigns to push the idea to the forefront and promote higher acceptance. Despite these efforts, many programs languish with low compliance.
Unless the policy or initiative is viewed negatively, a low compliance rate usually means one thing: It is harder than it should be to comply.
Thinking through the impediments, perceived or real, is the first step to increasing acceptance and compliance.
In many cases, the obstacles to compliance are hidden or less obvious, but they stand as a blockade against compliance. The idea is to find them, remove them, and make it easier for people to comply.
But there’s an easier way.
When the initiative, policy, or program is in the favor of team members, make it the default setting. Asking people to opt out of a favorable program as opposed to opt in changes compliance in a big way.
Take, for example, the issue of team members contributing to a retirement savings plan.
Organizations have been historically frustrated by low compliance, even when the program is a huge benefit to team members and is viewed positively by nearly everyone.
To reduce the friction of having team members fill out paperwork to opt in, many organizations now automatically enroll team members by default while giving them the choice to opt out.
This has more than doubled compliance rates for savings plans in many organizations.
The good news is that people tend to stick with default settings or options. They generally don’t push back or opt out.
When used ethically, automatic enrollment or making the new initiative the standard operating process for positively viewed programs makes life better for team members.
Think of the many programs, policies, initiatives, and work processes that could benefit from a default setting.
Popular default settings in organizations include meeting length, benefits enrollment, learning programs, cybersecurity practices, vacation usage, charitable giving programs, knowledge sharing templates, hiring processes, email reply-alls, camera settings for virtual calls, meeting agendas, file naming, AI meeting notes to tasks and actions, project completion reviews, and scheduling time blocks, to name just a few.
Your organization already has many defaults in place.
Two questions to ask: What other default settings would benefit team members? What defaults benefit the organization only and need to be discarded?
As long as the defaults are transparent, benefit the user, and allow for easy opt-out with no hidden steps or penalties, leaders should consider adding more.
Good organizations implement defaults that help people do what they would anyway if they had all the information, time, and attention they needed.
Any default not in the favor of team members should be eliminated.
Well-designed default settings subtly guide behavior, reduce friction, and boost compliance. Making the right choice, the easy choice, turns friction into workflow.
