Wage Subsidies at BIT

The Behavioural Insights Team is a social-purpose consultancy that uses behavioural science to improve people's lives. The Australian Department of Jobs and Small Business hired us to figure out why employers weren't using the Wage Subsidy, an incentive of up to $6,500 for hiring mature-aged, disabled, Indigenous, or long-term unemployed job seekers.

Job Service Providers connected employers with eligible job seekers, using the subsidy as an incentive. We conducted surveys and group interviews with over 150 of their staff. Two findings stood out:

• The name "Wage Subsidy" put employers off. "What's wrong with this person?" was a common reaction.

• The first subsidy payment didn't arrive for 14 weeks. By that point, many of the placements had already ended.

We renamed Wage Subsidy to Employment Bonus and reframed the language across the program. We front-loaded payments and moved contract signing online. I built the scripts, templates, and flyers staff used to promote it.

After we shipped:

• Promotion of the program rose 60%.

• Contracts were signed in 11 days instead of 17.

• Each site signed two more contracts a month.

The contract signing process moved online permanently. The terminology change held. A 40% upfront payment to employers became standard.

The name carried more weight than I'd thought going in. Once it was out of the way, the rest of what we shipped had room to do its work.