Victimized by Choice
Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 by Frank RocheWe offer employees choices — and lots of them. Choice in healthcare. Choice in pay mix. Choice in training. And choice in career planning. Choice is good, right? Not really. In fact, employees are victimized by choice.
Professor Barry Schwartz’s research for The Paradox of Choice shows that having too many choices can make people miserable. You can watch him talking about being victimized by choice and how to achieve personal happiness on a 19-minute TED Talks video. If you’re in HR program design business, it’ll be the best 19 minutes you’ll spend today.
When designing your next benefits program, remember the words of Mies van der Rohe: Less is more.
Tom O’Brien
Apr 19th, 2007
Frank:
Choice is good – to a point. That point is where instead of carefully selecting and supporting the most appropriate choices for your employees, you just put ALL the choices out there.
I’m not paternalistic toward employees in any way, but I think it is a major obligation of the HR/Benefits team to carefully select a reasonable number of options for ees and then provide great communication and decision support tools to help them make those choices.
Regards,
Tom O’B
Frank Roche
Apr 20th, 2007
Tom, good point. I think choice, up to a point, is good. After that, it’s just laziness. 50 choices in the 401(k) plan is no better than three. So, showing people that they have lots and lots of choices isn’t always the best approach.
As you say, give them the tools to make decisions.