Optimizing Post-Covid Return to Work Strategies – A Conjoint Case Study?
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This document describes a conjoint analysis study conducted by Numerious Inc. to help companies determine optimal return-to-work strategies as COVID-19 restrictions ease. The study used an online survey with 590 respondents to evaluate preferences for different return-to-work policy attributes. Conjoint analysis was used to determine the most important attributes and simulate preferences for various policy combinations. The results provide recommendations to maximize the percentage of employees willing to return to work under different options.
Optimizing Post-Covid Return to Work Strategies – A Conjoint Case Study?
- 1. Optimizing Post-Covid Return to Work Strategies A Conjoint Case Study Megan Peitz & Abby Lerner Numerious Inc. July 2021
- 3. 2021 | Numerious Inc. Optimizing Post-Covid Return to Work Strategies A Conjoint Case Study Megan Peitz Abby Lerner NUMERIOUS INC.
- 4. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 4 | New MR Webinar As COVID-19 restrictions are eased in some parts of the world, businesses who have had employees working from home for the past few months now have decisions to make about whether to require their employees to return to the office or whether they should keep working from home
- 5. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 5 | New MR Webinar Return to Work Policies Expect to be back in the office at least three days a week by September Expects as many as 20 percent of its employees to continue working remotely on a permanent basis Workers at all levels across the company can request to work remotely full-time "By Labor Day, I'll be very disappointed if people haven't found their way into the office and then we'll have a different kind of conversation“ CEO Choose from three options; flex, fully-remote, or office-based 30,000 white-collar office workers that they can continue working from home indefinitely as long as their managers approve flexible hours, but not the same policy for blue-collar/factory workers
- 6. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 6 | New MR Webinar But as researchers, we know that employers shouldn’t be making these decisions in a vacuum… …employers should listen to the voice of the employee!
- 7. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 7 | New MR Webinar One Approach
- 8. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 8 | New MR Webinar Our Approach – Conjoint Analysis
- 9. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 9 | New MR Webinar How Does it Work? Break down your product or service into its component parts, or attributes Define levels for each attribute Show consumers different combinations of products, usually 3-products per screen, and ask them to choose which option they would be most likely to buy Task is repeated many times, showing a different set of products in each task Resulting model provides shares of preference scores for all possible product combinations
- 10. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 10 | New MR Webinar Conjoint helps us answer strategic questions like… – Given this competitive set, who will choose our product/service/offering? – At what price will people switch to a competitor? – Can we modify our product to reduce cost while maintaining share? – Should we launch a high-end product or a budget model (or both)? – Will the new product cannibalize our own sales? – If we can’t deliver on Feature X, what does that mean for us? – Will delivering on Feature Y gain us enough incremental preference to justify the cost of investment?
- 11. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 11 | New MR Webinar But conjoint is NOTjust limited to buying and selling…
- 12. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 12 | New MR Webinar From our research, we will be able to understand… – Can we have one plan for everyone or should we give our employees options? – What is the optimal # of WFH days to offer? – How does our return-to-work strategy compare to other companies? – If we can’t offer X, what does that mean for our employees? – Can we decrease the # of WFH days while maintaining employees?
- 13. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 13 | New MR Webinar Methodology N=590 respondents from the US were recruited through Prodege’s Marketplace in July 2021 Requirements • Age 18+ • Currently employed full or part-time • Worked at an office prior to Covid-19 AND worked from home during Covid-19 Median time to complete – 8 minutes 43% completed the survey on a mobile device!
- 14. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 14 | New MR Webinar
- 15. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 15 | New MR Webinar Attributes & Levels ATTRIBUTE LEVEL 1 LEVEL 2 LEVEL 3 LEVEL 4 LEVEL 5 # of days in the office / week 1 day 2 days 3 days 4 days 5 days Capacity 100% of the desks are occupied Limited to 75% of desks occupied Limited to 50% of desks occupied Limited to 25% of desks occupied Mask Requirement Masks required for all employees at all times Masks required for all employees when not at desk Masks required for non- vaccinated employees at all times No mask requirement Desk Partitioning No partitions Temporary partitions between desks available Partitions required between desks Meeting Rooms Meeting rooms NOT available Meeting rooms available for single occupancy only Meeting rooms available (no occupancy restrictions) Kitchen Kitchen closed Kitchen open but no communal dishware Kitchen open (no restrictions) Professional Deep Cleaning Daily clean only, No professional deep clean Daily clean + Professional deep clean every week Daily clean + Professional deep clean every other week Daily clean + Professional deep clean every month
- 16. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 16 | New MR Webinar Conjoint Outputs The model creates “utilities” for each respondent. – Utilities are an overview of the preferences of the sample and the crux of your analysis! – A numeric value for every level of every attribute that reflect how desirable different features are. – The higher the utility, the better - but it’s all relative. Utilities Importance Scores Sensitivity Analysis Market Simulations Optimization Searches
- 17. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 17 | New MR Webinar Conjoint is an additive model How much a respondent likes a product is simply* the sum of all the utility values for the levels that describe that product! Therefore, we can create a market simulator that is essentially a “choice laboratory” for testing a multitude of real-world possibilities.
- 18. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 18 | New MR Webinar Employer Plan # of days in the office / week 5 days Capacity 100% of the desks are occupied Mask Requirement Masks required for all employees at all times Desk Partitioning Partitions required between desks Meeting Rooms Meeting rooms NOT available Kitchen Kitchen closed Professional Deep Cleaning Daily clean only + professional deep clean every month % of employees that would actually want to return to work under these conditions
- 19. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 19 | New MR Webinar Sensitivity Analysis Observe the change in share of preference due to changing specifications We do this by holding the “employer plan” constant and changing only 1 level at a time Therefore, the biggest improvement would be reducing the # of days in the office from 5 to 2 % of employees that would actually return to work under these conditions
- 20. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 20 | New MR Webinar Sensitivity Analysis However, the gain in percent of employees that would actually return to work is almost equal with 2 or 3 days in the office Not to mention, more employees are interested in 2 or 3 days versus only 1 day % of employees that would actually return to work under these conditions
- 21. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 21 | New MR Webinar Optimization Search % Return # of days in the office Capacity Mask requirement Desk Partitioning Meeting Rooms Kitchen Professional Deep Cleaning 1 81.2% 2 Limited to 50% Required for non-vaxed Temporary partitions Single occupancy Open, no communal dishware Every week 2 81.1% 2 Limited to 50% Required for non-vaxed Temporary partitions Single occupancy Open, no communal dishware Every other week 3 81.0% 2 Limited to 50% Required for non-vaxed Temporary partitions Available Open, no communal dishware Every week 4 80.8% 2 Limited to 50% Required for non-vaxed Temporary partitions Single occupancy Open (no restrictions) Every week 5 80.70 2 Limited to 50% Required for non-vaxed Partitions required Single occupancy Open, no communal dishware Every other week 6 80.6% 2 Limited to 50% Required for non-vaxed Temporary partitions Available Open, no communal dishware Every other week 7 80.6% 2 Limited to 50% Required for non-vaxed Partitions required Single occupancy Open, no communal dishware Every week 8 80.5% 2 Limited to 50% Required for non-vaxed Temporary partitions Single occupancy Open (no restrictions) Every other week 9 80.5% 2 Limited to 50% Required for non-vaxed Partitions required Available Open, no communal dishware Every week 10 80.4% 2 Limited to 50% Required for non-vaxed Temporary partitions Single occupancy Open, no communal dishware Every month
- 22. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 22 | New MR Webinar Cluster Analysis We can also find clusters in the data based on conjoint responses Here we see some minor differences in demographic and attitudinal responses, but the major differences are in their preferences for the work environment
- 23. | NUMERIOUS TRAINING Optimization Search by Segment Top Ranked Combination Segment % Would Return # of days in the office Capacity Mask requirement Desk Partitioning Meeting Rooms Kitchen Professional Deep Cleaning 1 97% In the office 1 day a week Limited to 50% of desks occupied No Masks Required Partitions required between desks Meeting rooms available for single occupancy only Kitchen open but no communal dishware Daily clean + Professional deep clean every month 2 94% In the office 4 days a week Limited to 50% of desks occupied Masks required for non- vaccinated employees at all times Temporary partitions between desks available Meeting rooms available for single occupancy only Kitchen open but no communal dishware Daily clean + Professional deep clean every other week 3 46% In the office 2 days a week Limited to 50% of desks occupied Masks required for non- vaccinated employees at all times Partitions required between desks Meeting rooms available for single occupancy only Kitchen open but no communal dishware Daily clean + Professional deep clean every week
- 24. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 24 | New MR Webinar Suggested Plan Based on Results Option 1 Option 2 # of days in the office / week 1 day 4 days Capacity 50% of the desks are occupied 50% of the desks are occupied Mask Requirement Masks required for non- vaccinated employees Masks required for non- vaccinated employees Desk Partitioning Partitions required between desks Partitions required between desks Meeting Rooms Meeting rooms available for single occupancy Meeting rooms available for single occupancy Kitchen Kitchen open but no communal dishware Kitchen open but no communal dishware Professional Deep Cleaning Daily clean only + professional deep clean every other week Daily clean only + professional deep clean every other week % of employees that would actually return to work under these conditions 31% 19% 88% 43% 20% 72% 3% 41% 49% 9% 9% 16% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Seg 3 Seg 2 Seg 1 Total 1 day a week 4 days a week None
- 25. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 25 | New MR Webinar So What? Conjoint Analysis does a great job at eliciting discriminating preferences among respondents, both in the aggregate and by subgroup. Researchers should strongly consider conjoint when trying to understand the trade-offs between different alternatives or when there is a likelihood for non- discriminating data.
- 26. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 26 | New MR Webinar When respondents are forced to make difficult tradeoffs, we learn what they truly value
- 27. 2021 | Numerious Inc. 27 | New MR Webinar And when we create a relevant and easy to understand survey, people enjoy it! I enjoyed doing that survey. The questions required careful thinking, but it was easy to answer and short. I liked the format of the survey. Questions were clear and easy to answer. Thanks- nice survey! Enjoyed the layout with the choices. This was a fun and relevant survey. Great survey, easy fill out and I enjoyed participating in it. “ “
- 28. 2021 | Numerious Inc. MEGAN PEITZ megan@numerious.com @MeganPeitz @NumeriousInc ABBY LERNER abby@numerious.com Thank You
- 29. Q & A Ray Poynter Potentiate & NewMR Abby Lerner Numerious Inc. Megan Peitz Numerious Inc.