BI Beat - Tools for Compliance: Reminders and Nudges for Work Search Activities

The BI Beat is a monthly newsletter column written by the Behavioral Insights team, featuring insights, practical examples and interviews from the field. Today’s piece continues our ongoing series, “Tools for Compliance.” Provided in partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor. 

You’re heading out the door when your phone buzzes.

“Reminder: Submit your expense report today.”

You pause. You meant to do that earlier in the week. You even told yourself on Monday that you would take care of it before things got busy. Then meetings piled up, emails kept coming, and suddenly it’s Thursday afternoon.

Without that reminder, the report might sit unfinished for another few days. Not because you disagree with the requirement. Not because it’s difficult. You simply forgot.

Within a few minutes, you open the system, upload the receipts, and submit the form. The reminder didn’t change the task. It just brought it back to your attention at the moment when action was still possible.

That small nudge closed the gap between intention and action.

Many public programs assume that once people understand a requirement, they will reliably follow it. Behavioral science reveals something more complicated. People often miss tasks not because they resist them, but because human attention is limited. When people are navigating stressful situations or juggling multiple responsibilities, their mental bandwidth shrinks. Behavioral researchers often refer to this as cognitive load. In those moments, even tasks that feel important—renewing a license, paying a bill, completing a required form—can quietly slip from memory. Other behavioral factors at play include:

• Salience: Work search requirements may feel important when someone first files a claim, but they can fade from view as the week fills with other priorities. Reminders bring the task back to the top of the mental to-do list.
• Timing: People frequently delay tasks because the effort feels immediate while the consequences feel distant. A reminder arriving close to a deadline shortens that psychological distance. Suddenly, the task feels urgent enough to complete.
• Habit formation: Repeated reminders help people establish routines. Over time, claimants begin associating certain days or times with completing their work search.

These behavioral insights have practical implications for unemployment insurance programs, particularly for meeting work search requirements.

NASWA’s Behavioral Insights Toolkit highlights two intervention ideas focused on timely reminders related to work search activities.

One approach involves text message reminders that prompt claimants to complete their weekly work search activities. These short messages typically arrive during the claim week and remind individuals that they must complete and record a certain number of job search activities. Text messages are especially effective because they reach people where attention already lives—their phones—and they appear in a format that feels immediate and easy to act on.

Another option focuses on timely reminders through email or the claimant portal. These messages are often delivered closer to the weekly reporting deadline and include direct links to the system where claimants log their job search activities. The timing helps people act before the deadline passes, while the inclusion of a direct link reduces the effort required to complete the task.

Both interventions operate on the same behavioral principles. The requirement already exists and most claimants intend to follow it. Reminders simply surface the task at the right moment and make the next step easy to take.

Understanding how reminders influence behavior can help agencies improve both compliance and the claimant experience. Improving program outcomes does not always require rewriting policies or adding new requirements. A well-timed reminder sometimes can accomplish more than a lengthy instruction manual.

• Timely prompts reduce accidental noncompliance by bringing requirements back to mind before deadlines pass. This means fewer missed work search reports, fewer follow-up investigations, and fewer appeals triggered by simple oversight.
• Reminders also make programs feel easier to navigate. A short message that clarifies what action is required—and where to complete it—removes uncertainty and lowers the effort needed to comply.

From a program perspective, reminder systems are also relatively low-cost. Once a messaging system is established, automated prompts can reach large numbers of claimants simultaneously. Small adjustments to timing, wording, and message format can significantly increase engagement.

When reminders are designed thoughtfully, claimants spend less time trying to remember what they need to do and more time focusing on the meaningful task of finding their next job. Programs benefit as well, with fewer missed requirements, fewer errors and their associated overpayments, and smoother interactions with claimants.