Life is busy. It seems these days that there are a million tasks battling for everyone’s attention making it hard to stay on top of everything that needs to get done.

For those living in poverty, just getting through the day can be profoundly difficult as it requires constant juggling of pressing tasks. The toxic stress of poverty can greatly diminish one’s executive and cognitive functioning, making it hard to get anything accomplished. Even with the best of intentions, it can be a challenge for participants to organize, plan, prioritize, and sustain focus to follow through on short and long-term goals.

To help participants strengthen their executive function skills and individual decision making, TuaPath offers a number of behavioral interventions in the form of nudges and reminders to help participants to stay on track and remember to do the things they need to do.

Notifications and Automated Meeting Reminders

We all use reminders to help us remember things whether it’s to pay a bill, wish a friend Happy Birthday or to show up at a doctor’s meeting. Providing participants with notifications and reminders as to their next scheduled check-in meeting is no different.

Given the importance of such meetings to help families get the resources and economic support they need and to keep moving forward to employment and self-sufficiency, it’s vital that participants show up to their meetings, whether in person or virtually.

To help participants keep and get to their meetings on-time, TuaPath predominately displays on the participant’s dashboard the date and time of their next meeting. Every time they login, they are reminded of the commitment and can plan and manage their time accordingly to ensure their meeting attendance.

In addition, TuaPath automatically sends, out on behalf of the case manager, a personalized email and/or text message either 24 or 48 hours prior to the meeting. For those individuals that have difficulty prioritizing attendance, these reminders are highly effective.

Work Activity Compliance Reminders

For cash assistance programs, documenting work activities and the hours spent accurately and getting the information submitted on-time is the key to maintaining compliance and benefits for their families.

TuaPath can send out a series of routine reminders to encourage participants to record as well as turn in their activity logs, along with verification documentation in a timely manner.

Each nudge sent can have a different message depending on its timing and the compliance need. Weekly nudges encourage participants to enter hours as they happen and not put it off to the last minute and by entering hours routinely, the accuracy of the data is often increased. Not sure about you, but I have a hard time remember what I did yesterday, let alone a week ago.

Nudges can also be sent to remind participants to “officially” turn in their hours. A technique that works well to get hours submitted early and well before the deadline involves friendly reminders sent (automatically) on behalf of their coach. In the case that the participant has ignored all nudge(s) and has yet to complete the process, a reminder that includes more punitive language outlining the consequences of no action is sent.

Completing tasks in a timely manner not only develops good habits and strong self-regulation skills that are critical for today’s workplace, they help to ensure that participants are compliant and are able to get the services needed.

One-off Email/Text Message Communications

At any given time, there is a lot happening with human services programs. Keeping track of it all for participants specifically, who have their own list of priorities, can be problematic and lead to missed opportunities and non-compliance.

TuaPath makes it easy for case managers and program administrators to send out personalized email and/or text message communications to …

• advertise an upcoming job fair or workshop,
• advise of a program or policy change,
• remind of an impending compliance deadline,
• notify when out-of-the-office,
• encourage behaviors like saving money in their savings account,
• share information on resource availability (heating assistance).

Email or text messages can be sent to any individual, a group of participants or the entire case load, as well as scheduled to be sent in the future making it easy to plan your communication efforts.

Whether it’s an email or a text message, it’s easy to include attachments such a flyer, notice, map or otherwise and embed hyperlinks to external websites for more information.

Communicating through nudges or reminders is an important aid in providing information to help people make good decisions.

TuaPath helps by automating where feasible and simplifying otherwise the sending of nudges. Contact us to learn more or to schedule a quick demo.

Reminders of Success – Celebrating Steps Achieved

When people feel they have made progress toward their goals, most often they are more committed to achieving those goals and sustaining the focus needed.

As such, TuaPath prominently displays on the participant’s dashboard a listing all the goals and tasks achieved. We call them Victories.

Seeing their Victories on their dashboard reminds participants daily of all they have achieved, regardless of how small or large the goal. Seeing their victories on a constant basis provides them with the momentum to continue their path and understand that it’s one step at a time.

Nudges: A Two-Part Series

This blog is part one of a two-part series that talks about the positive impact of nudges for strengthening participant engagement and improving compliance. To learn more about the big effect nudges have on building workforce capacity, read the blog “Nudges: The Impact of Small Interventiions on Workforce Predictability and Productivity.”

Interested in learning more? Give us a call at (970) 628-0220 or click to schedule a 30-minute demo.