(archive) Reforming labor policies and community programs for lower-income workers

TYPE:

Quantitative Research • Qualitative Research • Design Facilitation

OVERVIEW:

Mixed-methods research to inform labor policy reforms, community initiatives, and communications strategies that benefitted 234,000 lower-income workers.

METHODS:

Interviews, Co-design, Focus Groups, Surveys, Data Analytics (Latent Class Analysis, Regressions, t-tests)

DURATION:

18 MONTHS

2020.09 - 2022.03

ROLE:

Lead researcher, design facilitator

DELIVERABLES:

Quantitative and qualitative research reports, research insights

🌰 In a nutshell…

Pillar 1: Inform new policy terms through a study of stakeholders’ lived experiences

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Through a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, I identified gaps in the current experience of workers where they were slipping through the cracks of policy terms.

Pillar 2: Pilot community-led initiatives

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Riding on the same research from Pillar 1, I identified opportunities for consumers and employers to play a bigger role in supporting lower-income workers. These became challenge areas for the community co-design program.

Pillar 3: Inform communications strategy and quantify impact on policy perception

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Pillar 1 Methodology:

Interviews, focus groups, surveys and data analytics

Pillar 2 Methodology:

Co-design

Phase 3 Methodology:

Surveys and focus groups

Pillar 1 Findings:

Employers want to treat workers better for business sustainability, but consumers have a big part to play in this ecosystem.

Beyond wages, workers’ physical and mental well-being were impacted by the pandemic.

Pillar 2 Details:

8 community pilot programs that tackle employment opportunities, employer-employee relationships, public appreciation and workers’ well-being

Pillar 3 Findings:

The complexity of the current policies limited its impact and affected public perception of its efficacy, but targeted creative assets helped consumers and workers alike understand the policies more.

Outcomes

First policy review in the Ministry that heavily made use of user research data in conjunction with labor market statistics. Since this project, a user researcher has been tagged to each major policy review that the Ministry embarks on.
8 out of 18 recommendations presented to the government were derived from my research, impacting 234,000 workers.
Co-design program was extended to further public, private and people partnership.
Improved public understanding and perception of policies through a data-driven communication strategy, and quantified the return on investment of these publicity campaigns.

Context

Lower-income workers were amongst those most impacted by COVID-19 in Singapore.

The Ministry of Manpower (Singapore) came together with employers and union leaders to explore policy and community solutions to challenges arising from the pandemic, as well as prior challenges exacerbated by the pandemic.

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Lower-income workers are defined as workers with wages in the bottom twentieth percentile. In Singapore, these workers tended to be from cleaning, security, and landscaping industries.

Where I come in

I was the sole user researcher responsible for end-to-end research design, vendor management, synthesis and reporting of 6 surveys, 23 focus group discussions and 30 interviews. This was the first policy review in the Ministry that heavily made use of user research data in conjunction with labor market statistics.

I collaborated closely with counterparts in policy and communications departments to scope my research, and directly reported findings to cross-functional leaders and political leadership.

I also facilitated 1 of 8 projects in the 6-month co-design program with people, public and private sector participants to prototype ground-up community initiatives that support these workers.

The facilitation team for the co-design program! We worked with the design consultancy ThinkPlace for the inaugural run of this program.

Research Methodology

Objectives

I used a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to address research questions under 3 key pillars of the reform process:

Pillar 1: Inform new policy terms through a study of stakeholders’ lived experiences Pillar 2: Pilot community-led initiatives Pillar 3: Inform communications planning for the reform and quantify impact on policy perception

Historically, my internal stakeholders have favored statistics such as employment rate and income growth in data-driven policymaking. They were understandably concerned about the generalizability of research insights, as any resulting policy changes would impact the population at large.

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Hence, I chose to run large sample surveys where possible, while socializing stakeholders to the value of qualitative research through triangulation with interviews, co-design and focus groups insights.

An overview of the project timeline.

Pillar 1: Inform new policy terms through a study of stakeholders’ lived experiences

Sep 2020 - Mar 2022

Details

Qualitative
30 contextual interviews with lower-income workers
18 focus groups with workers, employers, and consumers to identify opportunities for policy and community interventions
Quantitative
2 online surveys (n=1,000 each) to compare the general public’s understanding and perception of the old and new policy terms
1 telephone survey (n=1,000) to understand workers’ reactions to reform
Latent class and regression analysis in R using the monthly perception survey (n=1,500 monthly) that our team also manages
Participants were recruited by vendors, using screening criteria I provided.

Pillar 2: Pilot community-led initiatives

Dec 2020 - Sep 2021

Details

Qualitative
18 focus groups with workers, employers, and consumers to identify opportunities for policy and community interventions (mentioned above)
Co-design
Design facilitation for a 6-month program to co-design community initiatives
Participants were recruited by colleagues on the citizen engagement team.

Pillar 3: Inform communications planning for the reform and quantify impact on policy perception

Dec 2020 - Nov 2021

Details

Quantitative
3 waves of surveys (n=1,000 each; pre-, during, and post-campaign) to evaluate the impact of the public communications campaign
Qualitative
5 focus groups with workers and consumers to test the framing and phrasing of the policy reform announcement
Participants were recruited by vendors, using screening criteria I provided.

Discoveries

Pillar 1: Inform new policy terms through a study of stakeholders’ lived experiences

Consumers have a big part to play in this ecosystem

Our conversations with workers, employers and consumers revealed specific gaps in the current policy where workers were falling through the cracks, exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19.

Most of these accounts drawn from interviews and focus groups were absent from the descriptive statistics captured in labor market reports.

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For context, Singapore’s Progressive Wage Model sets baseline wages by occupation level for each included sector, instead of mandating a singular minimum wage.

A focus group discussion with workers.

Finding #1

Since the wage policies were last updated in 2016, the occupations of the bottom twentieth percentile of workers have become more diverse, but certain these new sectors - such as retail and food services - have yet to be included in wage protections.

Finding #2

Lower-income workers, who tended to perform frontline and essential service duties, have also been overworked and under-appreciated since the pandemic started. The public were harsher towards them, as they were unhappy about the workers upholding stricter pandemic protocols and mandates.

Finding #3

While 70% of the public expected the government and employers to be responsible for workers’ wages, employers shared that it was difficult to pay their workers more than existing baseline wages as they needed to be competitive with their prices.

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Hence, beyond adjusting the wage policy parameters, we wanted to support the workers holistically by also tackling public appreciation and consumer attitudes.

Bonus: Are there consumer archetypes?

I mentored the intern on our team to run latent class and regression analyses on longitudinal data from our team’s recurring monthly survey, uncovering 4 archetypes of consumers based on attitudinal and perception data.

These were used by policy colleagues to scope an accreditation program for progressive employers after my departure from the Ministry.

The four consumer archetypes we derived from a latent class analysis of attitudinal and perception data.

Demographics were mapped onto the output of the latent class analysis to flesh out the archetypes.

Pillar 2: Pilot community-led initiatives

Bringing public, private and people together to drive change.

We brought together 54 community leaders, employers, and union leaders* to co-design community initiatives that can support lower-income workers.

Over 6-months, they developed 8 pilot initiatives that addressed 4 challenge areas derived from our focus groups:

Employment opportunities Employer-employee relationships Public appreciation Workers’ well-being

The team I facilitated launched Makan&Shine (makan means “to eat” in Malay) - an initiative that brings together lower-income workers for microlearning brown bags over casual meals to help them access new job opportunities and connections.

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There were operational challenges in co-designing directly with the workers due union regulations. Hence, we worked with their union leaders as a proxy. Nonetheless, all 8 project teams worked with lower-income workers in the development of their respective projects.

The first of 6 co-design workshops. Participants ideated on the 4 challenge areas during this session.

At the second workshop, we formed 8 groups after a round of dot voting on ideas across the 4 challenge areas.

Pillar 3: Inform communications planning for the reform and quantify impact on policy perception

The complexity of the current policies limited its impact and affected public perception of its efficacy

At a general population level, awareness of the wage protection policy was also particularly low, as tracked in the recurring monthly survey our team managed.

Awareness of the income supplement policy was particularly low for those under 35, as they fall under the age cutoff for the policy. Awareness of the wage protections policy was significantly lower for those above 55, likely due to its complexity.

The small proportion who were aware of the policies had a significantly better perception of the Ministry’s efforts to support workers.

Through the Ministry’s publicity campaign, we were able to improve awareness and perception of these policies.

I worked closely with communications colleagues to run 3 surveys for their publicity campaign that aimed to improve overall awareness and understanding of the policies.

The pre-campaign survey helped to us identify specific parts of the policies that were causing confusion and misconceptions, and the insights informed the design of publicity assets.

Our research showed that lower-income workers wished to see how peers have benefited from the policies, hence we featured real-life workers in the main campaign visuals.

The general public, on the other hand, wanted to see tangible numbers of how much support was given to workers. We created infographics that spelled out these figures to accompany the main campaign assets.

The dipstick and post-campaign surveys helped to quantify the impact of each of the assets. We were able to detect a statistically significant improvement in awareness and perception of the policies among people who have seen the campaign assets.

Awareness of the whole ecosystem of support policies was significantly higher among participants who recall key visuals and assets. Perception of government’s support for lower-income workers was also significantly higher among those who saw more assets.

I was also able to show a shift towards more consistent and more positive perceptions of policies between Jan 2021 and Sep 2021.

Outcomes

Introducing user research into the policymaking process at the Ministry

Prior to this project, our research team had contributed to ad-hoc research requests, but this was the first time we were involved at this scale. I was able to to showcase the value of user research in a policy space. Ever since, a researcher has been tagged to each major policy review that the Ministry embarks on.

I was invited to present this project at a Community of Practice gathering of government-wide user and public opinion researchers

As it was a lighthearted peer-led brownbag, we chose a pixel game theme and framed our research journey as a quest to rally community support

Uplifting employment outcomes of 234,000 workers

I regularly updated a tripartite workgroup of prominent political, union, and business leadership on my research recommendations. These added a human perspective to the labor market analyses and policy impact projections tabled by colleagues from policy teams.

The workgroup subsequently presented 18 policy recommendations, of which 8 were derived from insights from my research, that impact 234,000 workers in total - these included

Establishing an accreditation system to encourage consumers to shop from progressive businesses Establishing standards for protecting workers’ well-being Providing transitional support for employers to ensure that their businesses stay viable

The recommendations have been gradually implemented since 2021.

The full report tabled by the Tripartite Workgroup on Lower-Wage Workers.

Transforming the way we work with citizens

The first run of the Alliance for Action for Lower-Wage Workers co-design program was so successful that it was renewed for a second run in 2022 - the only governmental co-design program to be extended.

It was also awarded the Public Sector Transformation Award for its innovative approach to citizen engagement.

Several project teams from 2021 are still carrying on with their projects!

The cohort from the first ever Alliance for Action for Lower-Wage Workers.

Breaking down complex policies through effective communications

Our team had previously assisted the communications teams on ad-hoc concept tests and A/B tests of assets. Having extensive pre-, during, and post-campaign research this time gave them the confidence to take a data-driven approach to future campaigns. It was also extremely useful in justifying budgetary support for the department, as we could quantify the return on investment of these publicity campaigns.

The surveys showed that the emotive TVC was the most effective asset in this campaign.

Reflections

Code-switching for impactful research

I quickly became adept at “code switching” and data storytelling as I was working in a cross-functional workgroup with colleagues from policy and communications departments. I had to translate their deeply technical business questions into research questions and then back into actionable insights. I also had to present the insights differently to different leaders to best align with their respective thinking styles.

Helping our research team make our mark

Once we showed the value that user research could bring to the policy formulation process through this project, our team gained the trust of our inter-departmental colleagues and leadership, and have been able to direct research efforts more proactively in subsequent policy reviews.

I was eventually able to expand my team when I became manager, doubling in size from 2 to 4 researchers, to support the expanded responsibilities.

Missed opportunity for contextual inquiry

That said, as a junior researcher running the study during the pandemic, I was not able to introduce more methods into the studies. A contextual inquiry would have been most suitable to understand the day-to-day experiences of the workers we were trying to support.

Also the project that reignited my love for facilitating workshops!