Stuck at the till and fancy a chocolate to go? You look around but there’s no chocolate in sight – instead packets of nuts and fruit line the checkout shelves. Okay, that’ll do. You pop through two packets of nuts and a piece of fruit to your basket and proceed to checkout.
Sound familiar?
1 in 4 people in the UK will struggle with their mental health at some point in their lives. That involves your employees, co-workers, interns, and everyone else around you. With mental health taking a big hit over the past year and a half since the pandemic came knocking, we should all be paying closer attention to how we can support our employees’ wellbeing.
Like flowing water, people will often take the path of least resistance. If there are two or more options, a “default” provides a predetermined path for people to follow if nothing is specifically decided (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). For example, chainsaws are now sold with a deadman switch, stopping the dangerous machine when you are no longer gripping it. A more everyday example would be when you leave your phone or computer for a while, and the screen locks. Of course you are free to change this by diving into Settings and making changes, but how many of us do?
