Strengthening psychological safety in a digital marketing agency
Context
After 18 months of rapid growth, the agency experienced cultural drift and declining openness across teams. Leadership recognized the issue but lacked clear behavioral insights into why employees were reluctant to speak up and share feedback.
Barrier
We conducted semi-structured employee interviews and behavioral mapping to uncover behavioral barriers limiting open communication:
- Lack of role models for open feedback
- Low psychological safety in meetings
- Belief that speaking openly would lead to negative consequences
Solution and results
We implemented an intervention focused on shifting both environmental cues and leadership behaviors by:
- creating safer prompts and spaces for open dialogue;
- establishing feedback-sharing as a visible social norm; and
- working with leaders to respond constructively to employee input.
Outcome: While the data is still being collected, we’re pleased to report an indication of increasing voluntary feedback-sharing and more open communication across teams.
Improving onboarding completion for a digital investment platform
Context
A growing financial company was struggling with onboarding drop-offs among new retail investors. While the platform offered access to multiple investment portfolios, many first-time users found the onboarding journey confusing and intimidating, leading to low onboarding completion rates.
Barrier
Using service safaris and in-depth interviews (IDIs), we identified friction points across the onboarding journey:
- Complex application layout and navigation
- A psychologically daunting experience when answering financially sensitive questions early in the flow
Solution and results
We redesigned the onboarding experience by:
- simplifying the UI to reduce cognitive friction;
- incorporating more intuitive navigation cues;
- reordering financially sensitive questions to later stages of the journey, after users had built greater confidence and commitment.
Outcome: The redesigned onboarding flow increased onboarding completion rates by 20-30%, while also improving perceived ease-of-use.