Understanding workplace incentives and the motivations of workers is important for increasing workplace productivity and organizational efficiency. Many have suggested that employees are altruistic, willing to work harder when they believe that the amount of effort they exert in their job directly translates into value for their organization. Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of different employee and employer payoffs on the productivity of workers hired to stuff envelopes for either one of several charities or for a grocery store. The results indicate that employees were more productive when compensated, in part, for the number of envelopes they completed. Furthermore, workers were more likely to exert effort when their work was of value to their employer but did not increase their effort when the value to their employer was greater. Workers did not change their effort in response to receiving a surprise increase or decrease in pay.

Researchers in France studied whether government-provided recruiting services would impact firms’ job postings and hiring by lowering recruiting costs. The recruiting services decreased firms’ hiring costs and increased firms’ job postings and hiring, including much sought-after permanent-contract hires.

Can facilitating relationships between small- and medium-sized businesses help them grow? In Jiangxi Province, China, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to study the impact of business relationships on firm performance. Monthly meetings among firms increased sales, profits, and other business outcomes, mainly by facilitating learning and partnership development.

Firms in low- and middle-income countries tend to hire mainly from referral networks, which may limit hiring. Online job portals can expand recruitment networks, but firms may be hesitant to hire unfamiliar candidates outside of their network. Researchers partnered with an online job portal in India to evaluate the impact of promotional advertising for job postings, candidate identity verification, or both services on hiring by firms. Only the combination of advertising and verification led to firms hiring more, suggesting that it is important to not only give firms access to a larger candidate pool but also provide them with the opportunity and tools to screen candidates.

Researchers studied hiring discrimination among major employers in the United States by sending fictional resumes, with varying demographic information, to determine whether certain characteristics would lead to different follow-up contact rates. Employers were less likely to contact resumes with distinctively Black names than resumes with distinctively white names.

Skilled immigrants in Canada struggle in the labor market, facing substantially higher levels of unemployment and lower wages than non-immigrants. Researchers randomly manipulated thousands of resumes to measure the effects that foreign experience and having a name of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, or Greek origin (all large immigrant groups in Canada) have on callback rates from employers. Resumes with English-sounding names received more callbacks than those with Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, or Greek names. Work experience in Canada increased responses for resumes with Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, or Greek names, but callback rates were still lower than those with English-sounding names.

In low- to middle-income countries around the world, nearly one billion people lived in urban informal settlements as of 2018. Rapid urbanization in most large African cities has led to both more people and a higher proportion of people living in informal settlements over time. Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of winning the housing lottery on the demand for formal government housing, consumption, labor market outcomes, social networks, and community and public goods in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Winning the housing lottery increased demand for formal government housing: nearly 46 percent of participant households that win the lottery chose to move into their formal housing, indicating many prefer to live in government housing despite the high implicit cost that they pay to do so.

In Peru, researchers are delivering cash grants and business training to Venezuelan migrant entrepreneurs and assessing the impacts on the short- and long-term success of enterprises as well as migrants’ food security, health, and income.

Researchers are conducting a randomized evaluation to test the impact of Chile’s economic stimulus package on the profits and survival of SMEs.

In Colombia, researchers are evaluating the economic impact of providing stimulus loans to SMEs, distributed via the government’s COVID-19 relief program (“Unidos por Colombia”), on SME survival, profits, and employment.

Researchers evaluated whether coaching, guidance, and financial support could help young people create and sustain independent businesses. The entrepreneurship training program did not increase entrepreneurship, and participating youth were more likely to be unemployed and earn lower revenues from their business 28 months after the start of the program.

In collaboration with the French employment agency Pôle Emploi, researchers evaluated whether interview and hiring rates of minority candidates changed when employers collect anonymous resumes. Making resumes anonymous did not affect the average number of interviews and job offers volunteer firms made, the length of the hiring process, or the use of other recruitment channels, but it reduced the likelihood that firms interview and hire minority candidates.

In an attempt to reduce employee turnover and increase productivity, companies are increasingly allowing employees to work from home. Researchers analyzed the impact of working from home on productivity and work-life balance by randomly assigning some employees of a call center in China to work from home. Working from home significantly increased employees’ productivity and job satisfaction, although they were less likely to be promoted than similar-performing peers working in the office.

Researchers investigated whether access to information about local labor laws could improve firms’ understanding of the law. They found that free access to an existing subscription service that provided this information improved firms’ understanding of labor regulations and resulted in large employment gains.

Businesses may be slow to adopt a new technology even when it offers clear benefits. Researchers introduced a new fabric cutting technology to a randomly selected group of soccer ball manufacturers in Pakistan, but very few firms adopted it. They hypothesized that the most likely explanation for low adoption was a conflict of interest between firm owners and employees. When employees were given an incentive payment to demonstrate competence in the new technology, adoption increased, consistent with the idea that the conflict of interest within the firm was a primary barrier to adoption.