211. Corporate Social Responsibility Programs (That Work) with Wiam Hasanain

Welcome to episode 211 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy in today's episode, I'm so excited to introduce you to WM Hassanein.

Ready?

Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you.

Incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making.

It more brain friendly. Now here's your host, Malik Melina Palmer hello.

Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Today I'm very excited to introduce you to Weeam Hassanein. Weam is a seasoned social impact consultant with 20 years of experience operating at the intersection of policy reform, societal development, behavior change and civic engagement. She is a problem solver utilizing data driven insights to create practical approaches to resolving pressing social challenges on a range of projects and industries, some of which you're of course going to hear about on today's episode. Over the last decade she has spearheaded nationwide programs in areas of unemployment, health, financial literacy, sports and career planning. She has established the structure and strategy for nudge units, set their national agendas, and designed behavioral interventions to serve public policy. She built her foundation at Unilever and then did consulting with Bain Co. Middle East. When she moved on to a senior role in her native Saudi Arabia, leading the CSR function at a McKinsey subsidiary and creating nationwide community programs. From there, she spent a decade as a partner at the foremost boutique consultancies in the gcc, leading social impact and behavior change effort efforts. Her passion is advising on behaviorally informed policies across sectors. William believes strongly in spreading knowledge about the implementation of behavioral change across industries and has published a variety of articles on the practical application of behavioral science and has an MBA from UC Berkeley as well as a Master's in Behavioral Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science and in continuing to have a more global view of the representation here on the Brainy Business. I'm excited to have William be our first guest from Saudi Arabia and I'm.

So thrilled to be able to share.

Some of her work with you on the show today. If you are in a country that is underrepresented in the behavioral sciences or you know someone who's doing amazing work there, please do reach out to me and let me know if someone else should be a guest that I can feature on the show and I would love to hear from you. Send me an email Melina at the brainy business.com a bit of housekeeping before we get started there are lots of important links, including those to past episodes, related books, ways to learn more about Wham and so much more within the show. Notes for the episode, which are waiting for you within the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 21 1. Now let's jump right in. We am Hassanein. Welcome to the Brainy Business Podcast.

Thank you for having me.

Of course, of course. So delighted to have you with me here today. And we're going to talk about a whole host of amazing things that you've been working on. But first, I always love to have our guests share a little bit about who they are and how they found themselves in this world of behavioral science. So can you share a little bit about your background?

Sure. So I'm a social impact consultant and a behavioral scientist. And to be honest, I fell into behavioral science. It's not like I went looking for. I started my career 20 years ago in consumer behavior at Unilever. And then after grad school, where I majored in corporate social responsibility, I maneuvered into consulting, which gave me the opportunity to work with companies both on change management as well as with nonprofits. And I did a lot of work around corporate social responsibility programs and community change. And about 10 years ago, I shifted gears a little bit to working on policies that dealt with unemployment or health. And that's really where the focus on behavior change came, or at least where I thought the focus on behavior change came. But what I didn't realize until fairly recently is it's been a common thread all throughout my career, which is why I say I fell into it. You know, I started in consumer behavior, and now I'm working on policies that essentially are looking at behavior change.

Right. And I think because of the time that we are all in the behavioral sciences, I would say most of us fell into it in that way. Right. Because we. I've talked about this on the show before with guests that, you know, none of us had the opportunity. We were little and dreaming about what we wanted to be when we grew up. You know, a behavioral economist wasn't an option. Right. That was really. I know. I didn't even know, you know, I didn't know it was a thing. It didn't really exist. And actually I was planning to be a singer. So that was not, not on the radar, very different than where we ended up with, which I feel like now I have to ask. And I secretly know it's going to tie into where some of the conversation is going to go. But what did you dream about being when you were a kid.

When I was a kid, I thought I wanted to be a pediatrician, but I changed my mind every six months. So I went from pediatrician to genetic engineer to I want to save the world miraculously.

Right. Which, you know, I think in your own way, I think you are for sure.

We try. I think everyone tries.

Yeah. And so I didn't necessarily think we were going to jump in this quickly into this example, but feels like the right segue. So this is why we say we keep it conversational here and just sort of let the chat take us where it does. So can you share a little bit about education and career paths in Saudi Arabia? And I guess I don't know that you actually said that that's where you're located, but that's probably useful information.

It is, actually. Thank you. Ye. I've. I'm from Saudi Arabia and I've spent the majority of my life here. So when it comes to career paths and education and Saudi, when I was growing up in the night in the 80s and 90s, the career paths that were respected were more of the traditional career path. So we're thinking more along the lines of stem. You know, if you're a doctor, if you're an engineer, or if you were a little kid and that's what you wanted to be, your parents were very happy for you because they thought that your life would be set. And I think it's a very common thing within the East. Now, in the early 2000s, there are other careers that came not just within Saudi, around the world, but also in Saudi Arabia. You know, people were looking at other careers, such as interior architecture or being a chef or anything really that was outside of stem. And what I found is this is a problem that everyone has faced because unlike most behavioral change issues, this is something that we can all relate to. I mean, we. If you want a career or if you have a child within your life or a sibling, someone's going to want a career. And so around the early 2000s and 2000s and tens, I had the opportunity to work with a client on a very interesting corporate social responsibility program that focused on helping the youth for. Find their career path. And it was all about youth empowerment. Would you like me to go into the example more deeply?

Yeah, yeah, I think we can just. Yeah. Talk through. Through this and the work you did and as robust as you want to make it. And so the audience knows. I spoke with Weam. It's been months now, but when writing the. My second book, what your employees need and can't tell you. And this example that she's sharing about now is featured in the book. But we're going to get, we'll see as you talk about it if it's more in depth than what turned into the book or less because it got a nice chunk of space in there. So go ahead, start from the beginning. Let's just talk it through.

Sure. And I just, I need to say before I have had the opportunity to review your book and everyone needs to get it because there are some nuggets in there that are going to be extremely helpful.

Oh, thank you.

Now, of course. So now onto the example. So this was a non traditional corporate social responsibility program. And I say that because my client was an oil and gas company. So normally companies look for CSR programs that are very close to their core competencies. In this case, the company has a lot of employees and they found that their core competency was actually their talent, their human capital, which is a very altruistic and philanthropic way of looking at things, not the usual dollars and cents mindset. And after a lot of question storming and brainstorming, we decided along with the executives at the company and the middle management that the issue to focus on is how to help youth determine their career path. And I went into this a little bit before, but it's something that touches on everyone's heart. So it wasn't a very hard sell. I think we were lucky in that respect. Now, when it comes to choosing a career, there are of course, structural issues that we needed to take into consideration. So what the traditional career paths were within the country, the educational system, et cetera, any support that was offered within the broader support systems, whether it was within the public or private sectors. But we were trying to see what we could change within our corner of the world, so to speak. And we agreed that we could help open the youth size to other careers that were out there, as opposed to the traditional STEM careers. And being an oil and gas company, they needed other talents, not just those within the sciences. So for example, you know, they would need petroleum engineers, they would need maintenance staff, graphic designers, etc. Careers that were not always highlighted. And also for the various genders and from various, whether it's urban or rural areas of Saudi Arabia, that's also something that we took into consideration. So we along with the company assembled a multi pronged program that consisted of a talent exhibit that was like a career fair, but on steroids if you will, because it was for a month and it was extremely Exciting and featured augmented reality and a lot of cool tricks that would draw a large audience. The second prong was internship programs and shadowing, even for the youth that were at high school, so that they could come and experience these, even if it was for just a day, and really get a flavor of what it is we're talking about. And then the third was a speaker series. So we had either very young graduates who had already been through college and were now experiencing this profession, or individuals that were at college actually speak about this to the youth. And it was such a success, Melina. I was surprised. I mean, I have to say, this was like, back in maybe 2011, it was such a success. It ran for three years in a row, and it just kept growing year on year, and it got a lot of, you know, public support. It expanded across the country, and it just became this movement.

Yeah, yeah. And if I remember from our conversation before the. And you talked a little bit about the support for STEM careers and not so much for others, and I think that there are some people listening who firsthand totally understand what you're talking about with that, the pressure from your family to, you know, so if you grew up in, you know, wherever, and you. All your parents. Your parents were lawyers, they expect you to be a lawyer. Right. And. Or if they're doctors or, you know, whatever that is. And knowing that culturally, it was just, I don't want to say not accepted, but really not supported to get some of these other careers that matter for your client, like you said, that you worked with, but also just in that greater, you know, helping people find their own path in life. Right. So not everyone is going to succeed and enjoy working in a STEM career and helping to support the next generation so that they can find careers that they love is such a great thing to do. And in this case, you know, yes, there is a benefit to the organization that you worked with, but it's not like every single person is going to end up working for them. Right. And that's not what they want. They're trying to support everybody in the country.

Precisely. I think you. You hit on the nail when you mentioned the social norm. So it's not so much that these jobs weren't available. It's just the social norm was not. If you got good grades, it was not, okay, go ahead and become a graphic designer, or go and open your restaurant and become a chef. Today, you know, we're in 2022, and we have so many Saudi chefs that own their own restaurant, and Saudi graphic designers and rock climbers and mountain climbers, and these are some of the careers that we were highlighting over 10 years ago. So it's really nice to see how the social norm has changed. And of course, you know, to create this change, it wasn't just this one CSR program, but it is nice that we were part of that change because there's been so much work done as part of the country's Vision 2030 to incorporate career paths, et cetera. But there is one thing I also forgot to mention my apologies when I mentioned the multi pronged approach. They also employed career guidance experts and they sent them out to various schools. I'm forgetting the number now, so that they could help the students at these schools really understand what they wanted to do. You know, their passions, their interests, what they were good at, whether they wanted to be professional athletes, et cetera.

Right.

And I think all of those items working together really helped.

Oh, absolutely. And I. We don't explicitly talk about availability bias a lot on the show. It has an episode from very early on, but having it so the local news was talking about the event and all the pieces with careers and helping kind of the whole movement happening at one time, instead of it just coming from the school system or, or, you know, one college that's talking about it or. Or whatnot. Having so much messaging about this and featuring how this is actually a great new path to look at and then the parents are able to see it and it can kind of help nudge them in a new direction to see that this is accepted, acceptable, except they should be accepting and, you know, supporting their kids in the path they want to take because they are suitable roles really helped. I think all those aspects coming together made a real difference in helping move the needle.

Yeah, And I'm really glad that you mentioned availability bias because I think it's not just for the students, but it was for the parents, as you had said. And so the parents, along with the career counselors, had to work together to really help the students bridge that intention to action gap. So even if the student wanted to become a chef, and I know I'm very hung up on this idea of students becoming a chef, because it's not that I'm hungry, it's just it was very odd back in 2010 and 2011, you needed to have the support of the parent because they are gatekeepers. You know, 15, 16 year olds, at least in our country, are gatekeepers for their children and what they decide to do and where they decide to go to college. So that availability, even for the parents to see that there were respectable, very accomplished and successful people from the same city at times that had gone through these professions and have been able to, you know, find a spouse that didn't say, oh, you're in this job, I don't want to marry you. Which, you know, if families are involved does sometimes tend to happen in some cultures. They're able to make a living that they're not struggling and they're well respected in society. Plus they're able to give back, you know, because they. A lot of these individuals came to the talent exhibit and shared their experiences. So not only were they well respected for their profession, they were revered because they were sharing their knowledge and they were making the world a better place and helping others. Right.

And you know, I talk a lot on the show about understanding the problem you're solving and also knowing that the concerns of one party are not the same as the concerns for someone else. And the way you address the problem for each segment really matters. Right. So for the parents, it's a different hang up point. The children are you. And you outlined those very nicely there. You know, for kids, there is this, Are my parents going to still support me? Am I going to have my family? Of course. I'm sure they care about, you know, some of them about if they're going to get married and whatnot. But, you know, there have been kids, I'm sure, for generations that loved the idea of cooking and being a chef, but knew it wasn't something that was realistic for them and they just didn't even pursue that, didn't even ask the question. And so helping them to see, you know, overcome their hurdles, helping the schools to overcome their hurdles, your company and all these aspects, there's so many problems needing to be addressed and I really love the robustness of the example and how it all came together. Another piece of that that I think you all did a really great job with is reducing sludge. Which sludge has its own episode on the show, but if you can share a little bit about just making it so easy for people to participate and some of the efforts that you went to for that.

Sure. And you know, I love the notion of reducing sludge because we don't talk about it enough. We talk about let's make things really, really easy, but we don't really talk about how do you reduce the friction or remove the sludge. So when we looked at this problem, and like I mentioned at the beginning, there were some structural issues. So if you wanted to be a chef, there Weren't culinary academies that you could go to. And so that's not something that we could help with. But what we could help with was if we were having the talent exhibit is number one, how are we going to bring the students to the talent exhibit? Because transportation is not always available. And a lot of these were public schools. And plus we were trying to get them to come in in certain groups and cohorts. And so what the company did is they offered free transportation to these students. They went a step further and they coordinated themselves through a third party. So there was a scheduling taken care of. That was one thing that schools always. Anyone who's been involved in field trips knows scheduling is a hassle. So they took the difficulty off of the school. The next was providing the actual transportation, taking the difficulty not just off the school, but off the parents. Because parents do feel that buses are safer, especially if they're provided by a particular company that's safe, et cetera. And then the third thing that we had done to make things easier for the students themselves after they got there was to provide them with a dedicated portal and a tool that would help them on the spot determine what their talents were, what their personality assessment would say. So you didn't have to go home and enter a code or anything. It was all done for you the second that you entered. And the students were comparing with one another what their results were. So we use this to track our KPIs. Now I know we're talking about removing the sludge, but it's also difficult for us. So we needed to remove the sludge for the company to track KPIs. And while we couldn't run an RCT, we did want to measure the pre and post immediate effects. And by providing this tool on the spot to the students when they entered and when they left the exhibit, we were able to get results. And see that. Don't quote me, but we had over double digit changes in their perceptions of certain careers. So suddenly the short term result was very, very promising. Now we would need to do longitudinal studies to be able to say whether or not that had a long term effect. But I just wanted to mention this because sometimes we think of sludge only from the consumer perspective and we also need to think of it from a practitioner perspective. Like it is really difficult to run an RCT while it is the gold standard each and every time. That's not always possible, of course.

Yes.

And for everyone who's listening and we hear acronyms and you think rct. So for anyone who doesn't do studies that would be a randomized control type. I just totally randomized control trial. So yeah, and that's, you know, if you were doing a test in a lab and had recently Dr. Marco Palma was on the show talking about the types of studies we do at Texas A and M University in the human behavior lab, you know, when you can really control who's a part of the test and you're able to run that more in a lab based study and you can do those obviously in an applied space. But in this case where in business that isn't always slash often the fit that's going to work because you're, you're needing to be kind of testing as you go. And if you were going to be spending tons and tons of time doing this as an rct, you wouldn't have had the impact because it would have taken so much longer to just get out there and see what you can do. Right. And in this case, you know, you're very unlikely, especially with all the back work that the team did, very unlikely to be causing any harm with the work you're doing. It's going to have some sort of positive impact somewhere. I think it exceeded your expectations across the board, which is amazing. But you know, there's little risk of harming anyone and you want to get out there and start doing some things. And so RCT again. So now we know it's, you know, that randomized trial doesn't have to be done in every situation in the real world, we'll say, and that makes a difference. So with sludge too, I was thinking about this as you were talking because there, there's always, you know, you're always adding sludge and removing sludge in various ways. And in the same way, you know, you're using the sludge to nudge as we kind of move these around. And so I think you had a really smart area where you added a little bit of sludge or friction that shaped the experience that the students had when they got there. So knowing that they were still going to be inclined because it's just starting the conversation. And so those STEM based programs are where they're going to be going first. And if they were going to try to make a beeline for them, you don't want them to be right at the front of the career fair. Right. So talk a little bit about what y' all did in that aspect for adding some sludge to help the, the problem you were trying to solve.

Sure. This is something I heard earlier, may have been manipulative, but I don't think it's manipulative because it's very positive. It's just curating the experience to ensure that the students gain as much as they can. What we did is we thought of the exhibit as a sort of maze, and we knew that they would have to follow a certain path. Now, as you mentioned, the desired careers we put at the very end, and we forced them through the way that the exhibit was created to go through the entire exhibit before they made it to those careers. And by doing that, they not only had to walk through the various booths, they got to experience some of them due to the bells and whistles that I'd mentioned at the beginning. So it's very much like, and I know we've talked about the IKEA effect earlier, but this is like when you actually go to Ikea and they force you to go all the way through the store before you can leave, having bought the plant at the very end. So this way, we curated the experience and made it difficult for them to leave unless they went through each and every booth. They didn't have to sit and talk to everyone, but at least they would have been exposed to the. And I believe there were 30 different careers within each of those. So just imagine you think you're going to see a dentist, but actually you have been exposed to 30.

Right. And with that, where you were mentioning. So the augmented reality, the people who were there speaking about their careers and being able to have some of the, the flashier exhibits, the ones that were more likely to attract a herd of people that may make others want to come over, are in some of those careers that were not STEM based, Right?

Precisely, yes. I mean, we, at the time, augmented reality was all the rage. So that's why we looked at utilizing it in a couple of the exhibits. So that, that would be where the majority of students were drawn. Because you know how people. It's like if I brought an NFT to a talent exhibit. Now, for those users that are millennials and not sure what augmented reality appeal would have been back in 2013.

Right. So saying, so what? Who cares about that? Right? But that was. Yes. And I'm sure, you know, even though this episode's just going to come out in a couple of weeks, I'm sure, you know, we'll have moved on past, you know, NFTs to the next big thing, whatever that's going to be. Right. It's continually precise, it's difficult for us to keep up.

But, but also while, while creating this And I'm very glad that you mentioned we created that difficulty in reaching those careers. We were constantly thinking about how can we make them stay at the exhibit for longer. And I know you've spoken in lots of your episodes about customer experience and how you can utilize behavioral science. And that in essence is what we were doing. However, we didn't do it while waving the behavioral science flag. And that's something maybe, if there are any practitioners out there, I think it's important to note is there are times when customer experience, behavioral science, corporate social responsibility, they all come together. So I wouldn't get all caught up in the terminology. I would be more concerned with what is your end objective. And here our end objective was how can we increase the careers that they will consider and how can we make sure that they have a positive experience at this exhibit so that that mental association is not the same as a social norm that was there based on the research that we had done at the time. Right.

And I do want to address, like you said, the potential manipulation point which comes up at any point. We talk about nudging or behavioral science in general. I get the, I get asked the question all the time, as I'm sure you do as well. And in all of these cases, no one's forced to take any sort of other career. They don't have to stop at any of the booths. They don't have to engage with anyone. There are still, I'm sure plenty of people that went through and became, you know, went into their STEM based career and went with those more traditional job roles. And that's great, you still need those people in, in the world. But helping them, even if they don't consciously register as a choice for them or even, you know, say yes, I want, oh, I want to be a chef or I want to become a rock climber or a graphic designer and some of these other more obscure careers that you had featured there that people were able to see that it's something that exists. And even, even if it's opening them up to being more acceptable of those for their peers. You know, when, when they're going in through school and on is is really important. And again it's not when we look at Choice Architecture and I'm definitely going to link to the episode on Nudges and Choice Architecture, just the intro that was a seven part series. But that the way that whether you think about it or not, you are influencing the decisions that people make with the way you put the booths in to the space. And so if you would have just randomly assigned them instead of being thoughtful about where they went. It would have impacted the choices that people made and how they went on into the world afterwards, even if you didn't think about it. And I always think it's better to be thoughtful about it.

Yeah, I like that phrasing be thoughtful because implies that you're being considerate and when you are trying to create such a change. And really, there's nothing wrong with STEM careers. That's not. And I'm sorry if maybe that's how I phrased it. It was just to broaden the basket of potential careers that the students would be considering, you know, if they really wanted to do stem. We still need individuals that work in stem, and specifically women also, that work in stem. Yeah. But it's really just about broadening it. But I like the phrasing of be thoughtful because when you are working in behavior change, even if it's something as small as where am I going to put the engineering booth in terms of the layout on an A4 piece of paper, you need to be thoughtful because it might help someone be exposed to, like, you mentioned chefs or graphic designers. And so I think the message that I have is don't think anything is too small to be considered a small step towards behavior change. Because everything that we had worked on in this program was extremely intentional. And even though it's back from 2013 and I've worked on lots of behavior change projects since then, this one is. It has a very deep and close place to my heart because of the amount of effort not only that went into it, but the impact that we saw year after year on the students. And so I think something really went right. You know, we were blessed, definitely.

And of course, every episode of the show ends with me saying, be thoughtful. And that's how I sign off on my emails. So my group is called the Be Thoughtful Revolution. I'm all about being thoughtful around here. So. And also just there's a segment in the book, or my first book, what your customer wants and can't tell you has tips about testing. There's a whole chapter to it. And I have an episode on that that I'm going to link to in the show Notes as well that my three tips for setting up your own tests and experience experiments are to keep it small, be thoughtful, and test often, which I think is very much in line with what you were just talking about there. So I think we have done a good job of covering this event and I know there's so much there that we could talk about it forever and ever. It was so fun to chat with you. And for everyone who I'm sure there's someone listening who is maybe trying to do something with behavioral science in their country and feels like they don't have a voice, maybe for people who are excited to contact you to learn more, to do, work with you, to be part of research or whatever else, what's the best way that they should be trying to connect?

Oh, thank you for putting that out there. I think LinkedIn is a great way to connect, so please feel free to reach out to me. I'll Send you my LinkedIn profile if you don't have I think you have.

A oh yes, I believe that is how we first got connected. As with so many other amazing guests on the show, I would say the top two ways that I connect to people are LinkedIn and Twitter is where I end up getting a lot of people reaching out. And of course people just send me emails and things too that they're able to get through from the podcast. But we'll definitely link to your LinkedIn in the show notes. So that's going to be waiting for everyone. Weam, thank you for joining me on the show. It was wonderful to chat with you again and I look forward to the next time.

It was my pleasure. Thank you. Have a good evening.

Thank you again to William Hassanein for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, I really love how a company was able to look at a countrywide issue that they cared about and find a way to create a corporate social responsibility program that really worked. It helped them, sure, but it had such a positive impact on an entire country and generations of students to come because they were so thoughtful about the process. Companies and schools put on career fairs all the time and they don't have much of a lasting impact. So what made this one different? The incorporation of behavioral science into the experience like we talked about on the.

Show today, is part of it.

And it's also because they took time to really understand the problem they were trying to solve and all the different people involved, each of their respective contexts that needed to be included as they built out the program and the solution. This wasn't just thrown together. It was an amazing achievement that took a long time and a lot of thoughtfulness to plan. And it shows. And I'm delighted to share that. You can learn more about this case study in my upcoming book, what your employees need and can't tell you, which is now on pre sale and will be in a bookstore near you on October 11, 2022. And of course you can find it now on Amazon if you just search for what your employees need and can't tell you or me. Melina Palmer as an author thank you to WEAM for sharing about this and more with me both today and in the interviews for the book. So much amazing stuff. As a quick reminder, the show notes for the episode with the links to past related episodes and books and more are all waiting for you within the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 211 thank you again to William Hassanein for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me next week for another brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun, you won't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me and remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and.

Other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.