Post-Intervention Behavioral Relapse
RCTReview
Organizations often assume that temporary behavioral interventions will permanently re-educate workers or build persistent habits, neglecting the reality that cognitive biases re-emerge immediately when external nudge structures stop.
Picture this
Like a GPS navigation app that guides a driver through traffic—the moment the app is turned off, the driver reverts to taking their old, familiar route. Without active, ongoing cues, employees fall back into their natural default patterns of delaying unpleasant work.
What the evidence says
Following program termination, the post-intervention treatment dummy returned to zero/statistically insignificant levels across goal completion, gap indicator (-5.16, p > 0.10), and biweekly productivity (0.387, p > 0.10), proving that productivity gains were driven strictly by active reminders rather than permanent habit formation or career concerns.
- Who was studied
- N = 61 bank branches in Colombia tracked post-intervention (October–December 2009 administrative data).
- How
- Difference-in-differences analysis comparing treatment and control branches after the 6-month Madrugador Program was halted.
What to do
Maintain structural nudges and managerial reminder routines permanently rather than treating behavioral interventions as one-time training sessions.
From the source
"Once the competition and the reminders were removed, loan officers reverse their tendency to distribute the work load more evenly across the month. This result serves as an important confirmation that indeed the effect of the intervention is tied to the actual reminders; it is not the result of a more diffuse shift in the perceived career concerns of loan officers."
Fighting Procrastination in the Workplace- An Experiment.pdf