The basis of Professor Whillans’ research is the idea that time is one of our most valuable resources, and she poses the question, “How should people spend time at work and outside of work to promote wellbeing and professional success?” To understand barriers that prevent people from spending time in ways that predict well-being and professional success, she conducts research in the lab and field to explore the applicability and replicability of her research. In one set of projects, Prof. Whillans studies how differences in time-use (e.g., chore and childcare burdens) and the willingness to negotiate for time, contributes to gender gaps in happiness and professional success. Building on this descriptive research, she works to develop psychologically-informed interventions to overcome these differences. In another project, Prof. Whillans is developing rigorous methods to assess time-use through observing behavior instead of relying on self-report measures. Prof. Whillans also applies this research in organizations by exploring how time-use shapes the self-reported happiness and productivity of employees and teams within hybrid organizations. Lastly, Prof. Whillans has developed a program of research that explores the benefits of charitable giving and develops behaviorally informed strategies to help people act in line with their intentions to spend time and money in generous ways.
Ashley V. Whillans
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
Worldwide, women business owners earn less than men. Women tend to run businesses in less profitable sectors than men, but even within the same sector, women-owned businesses underperform male-owned businesses. Full-time employed women typically report higher chore and childcare demands than full-time employed men. Prof. Whillans’ latest research—conducted with 30,000 employees around the world—suggests that this gap widened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on this research, Prof. Whillans focuses on an experimentally untested explanation for these gender gaps: inequality in chore demands. In a randomized control study with 557 female business owners living in Kibera, Kenya, the largest informal settlement in East Africa, time saving services (i.e., meals and laundry) resulted in a sizeable improvement in revenues as compared to unconditional cash transfers and a control condition. Despite the persistence of inequality in chore burdens between men and women, researchers have primarily tested interventions that focus on providing cash grants. These data suggest that employers may want to provide time saving services to reduce gender gaps in workplace performance.
Following from the pandemic, employees across industries are placing an increased importance on time flexibility and autonomy, and leaders are looking for ways to implement flexible work strategies that create equitable opportunities for all employees. This renewed focus on flexibility leads to the question of whether policies that existed before the pandemic are still effective today (e.g., flexible work hours), and whether policies that were deemed to be harmful in the past (e.g., telecommuting) are effective now. To address these key questions, Prof. Whillans is exploring how time and autonomy-related rewards, policies, and norms shape the employee experience.
In one ongoing project, Prof. Whillans examines how one of the costs of hybrid work—increased interruptions—can be offset through the implementation of collaboration norms that legitimize focused work. Across three studies with correlational and field experimental data, Prof. Whillans finds that team-level collaboration norms reduce the felt burden of interruptions during work hours, which in turn increases perceived control over work demands and positive mood.
In another ongoing project, Prof. Whillans examines whether and how dispersion in hybrid organizations influences the employee experience. Prior research suggests that the geographic, spatial, and configurational dispersion of teams critically shape employee outcomes like productivity and wellbeing. Yet, most of this research was conducted prior to the pandemic, which normalized hybrid work. Thus, management research has little to say about what team dispersion looks like today in hybrid workplaces, or how dispersion influences employee outcomes. To address these questions, Prof. Whillans employs population-level archival data collected from a well-established company (N=26,133 teams). Using a machine learning approach, Prof. Whillans has created a typology of the four most common team configurations. She is tracking changes in dispersion and how these changes shape the employee experience.
Lastly, Prof. Whillans is examining the role of informal conversations in predicting employees’ ability to learn, bond, and to enjoy their work. Hybrid workplaces involve more digital communication. Some research suggests that email and meetings have increased by 250% since before the pandemic, and as a result, 30% of knowledge workers are now working a “third shift” between 7pm-10pm. Despite this increase in digital communication, Prof. Whillans’ recently published research finds that informal “sensemaking” conversations often disappear in hybrid workplaces because employees are less likely to be in the office together at the same time. Junior employees used to overhear senior managers debriefing a meeting in a hallway or on the way to the airport. As teams become increasingly distributed, these ‘hallway’ conversations have lessened, possibly undermining learning, development, and team cohesion. Building on this insight, Prof. Whillans is working with a tech company to understand how knowledge workers use technology to engage in informal interactions and sensemaking on virtual and hybrid teams.
Ashley Whillans is an assistant professor in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit, teaching the Motivation and Incentives course to MBA students. Her research investigates how individual decision-making and organizational policies about time and money shape employee motivation and well-being. In both 2015 and 2018, she was named a Rising Star of Behavioral Science by the International Behavioral Exchange and the Behavioral Science and Policy Association. In 2016, she co-founded the Department of Behavioral Science in the Policy, Innovation, and Engagement Division of the British Columbia Public Service Agency. Her research has been published in top academic journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, Nature Human Behavior, and Science Advances and popular media outlets including Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Professor Whillans earned her BA, MA, and PhD in Social Psychology from the University of British Columbia. Prior to joining HBS, she was a visiting scholar and guest lecturer at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Her dissertation research on time and happiness won the 2018 CAGS Distinguished Dissertation Award for being the single best PhD thesis in Canada across the fine arts, humanities, and social sciences. In 2022, she won the SAGE Early Career Trajectory Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. This award recognizes outstanding achievements by early career scholars (between 4 and 6 years Post-PhD) in social and personality psychology, including contributions to teaching, research, and service to the field.
- Featured Work
-
The basis of Professor Whillans’ research is the idea that time is one of our most valuable resources, and she poses the question, “How should people spend time at work and outside of work to promote wellbeing and professional success?” To understand barriers that prevent people from spending time in ways that predict well-being and professional success, she conducts research in the lab and field to explore the applicability and replicability of her research. In one set of projects, Prof. Whillans studies how differences in time-use (e.g., chore and childcare burdens) and the willingness to negotiate for time, contributes to gender gaps in happiness and professional success. Building on this descriptive research, she works to develop psychologically-informed interventions to overcome these differences. In another project, Prof. Whillans is developing rigorous methods to assess time-use through observing behavior instead of relying on self-report measures. Prof. Whillans also applies this research in organizations by exploring how time-use shapes the self-reported happiness and productivity of employees and teams within hybrid organizations. Lastly, Prof. Whillans has developed a program of research that explores the benefits of charitable giving and develops behaviorally informed strategies to help people act in line with their intentions to spend time and money in generous ways.
Worldwide, women business owners earn less than men. Women tend to run businesses in less profitable sectors than men, but even within the same sector, women-owned businesses underperform male-owned businesses. Full-time employed women typically report higher chore and childcare demands than full-time employed men. Prof. Whillans’ latest research—conducted with 30,000 employees around the world—suggests that this gap widened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on this research, Prof. Whillans focuses on an experimentally untested explanation for these gender gaps: inequality in chore demands. In a randomized control study with 557 female business owners living in Kibera, Kenya, the largest informal settlement in East Africa, time saving services (i.e., meals and laundry) resulted in a sizeable improvement in revenues as compared to unconditional cash transfers and a control condition. Despite the persistence of inequality in chore burdens between men and women, researchers have primarily tested interventions that focus on providing cash grants. These data suggest that employers may want to provide time saving services to reduce gender gaps in workplace performance.
Employees frequently engage in negotiations outside of formal settings like salary negotiations, and for resources other than money. Employees must negotiate their roles, negotiate for work-life accommodations, and negotiate for resources such as the time, staff, and equipment that they need to succeed. A new area of negotiation research has started to explore informal interactions that can help employees gain opportunities, improve work output, and enhance their wellbeing. Prof. Whillans’ builds on this emerging area of research, and her recently published research, to explore how gender and workplace status shape people’s willingness to engage in an informal negotiation with implications for productivity and wellbeing: asking for extra time on work-relevant deadlines. Consistent with the idea that workplace status and gender are not synonymous, different mediational profiles emerge. Women feel less comfortable making an extension request due to the fear of burdening their managers. In contrast to these findings, lower status individuals feel more concerned about appearing incompetent. Together, this ongoing research sheds light on whether and how gender and workplace status shape people’s willingness to engage in informal negotiations that could improve work quality and work-life balance.Following from the pandemic, employees across industries are placing an increased importance on time flexibility and autonomy, and leaders are looking for ways to implement flexible work strategies that create equitable opportunities for all employees. This renewed focus on flexibility leads to the question of whether policies that existed before the pandemic are still effective today (e.g., flexible work hours), and whether policies that were deemed to be harmful in the past (e.g., telecommuting) are effective now. To address these key questions, Prof. Whillans is exploring how time and autonomy-related rewards, policies, and norms shape the employee experience.
In one ongoing project, Prof. Whillans examines how one of the costs of hybrid work—increased interruptions—can be offset through the implementation of collaboration norms that legitimize focused work. Across three studies with correlational and field experimental data, Prof. Whillans finds that team-level collaboration norms reduce the felt burden of interruptions during work hours, which in turn increases perceived control over work demands and positive mood.
In another ongoing project, Prof. Whillans examines whether and how dispersion in hybrid organizations influences the employee experience. Prior research suggests that the geographic, spatial, and configurational dispersion of teams critically shape employee outcomes like productivity and wellbeing. Yet, most of this research was conducted prior to the pandemic, which normalized hybrid work. Thus, management research has little to say about what team dispersion looks like today in hybrid workplaces, or how dispersion influences employee outcomes. To address these questions, Prof. Whillans employs population-level archival data collected from a well-established company (N=26,133 teams). Using a machine learning approach, Prof. Whillans has created a typology of the four most common team configurations. She is tracking changes in dispersion and how these changes shape the employee experience.
Lastly, Prof. Whillans is examining the role of informal conversations in predicting employees’ ability to learn, bond, and to enjoy their work. Hybrid workplaces involve more digital communication. Some research suggests that email and meetings have increased by 250% since before the pandemic, and as a result, 30% of knowledge workers are now working a “third shift” between 7pm-10pm. Despite this increase in digital communication, Prof. Whillans’ recently published research finds that informal “sensemaking” conversations often disappear in hybrid workplaces because employees are less likely to be in the office together at the same time. Junior employees used to overhear senior managers debriefing a meeting in a hallway or on the way to the airport. As teams become increasingly distributed, these ‘hallway’ conversations have lessened, possibly undermining learning, development, and team cohesion. Building on this insight, Prof. Whillans is working with a tech company to understand how knowledge workers use technology to engage in informal interactions and sensemaking on virtual and hybrid teams.
- Books
-
- Whillans, Ashley V. Time Smart: Tools for Reclaiming Your Time and Living a Happier Life. Tool. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2020. Electronic. View Details
- Whillans, A.V. Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2020. View Details
- Selected Publications
-
- Whillans, A.V., and Colin West. "Alleviating Time Poverty Among the Working Poor: A Pre-Registered Longitudinal Field Experiment." Art. 719. Scientific Reports 12 (2022). View Details
- Whillans, Ashley V., Jaewon Yoon, and Grant Donnelly. "People Overestimate the Self-Presentation Costs of Deadline Extension Requests." Art. 104253. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (November 2021). View Details
- Whillans, Ashley V., Jaewon Yoon, Aurora Turek, and Grant E. Donnelly. "Extension Request Avoidance Predicts Greater Time Stress Among Women." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118, no. 45 (November 9, 2021). (This article was featured as a “Research Highlight” in Nature in November, 2021.) View Details
- Hur, Julia, Alice Lee-Yoon, and Ashley V. Whillans. "Are They Useful? The Effects of Performance Incentives on the Prioritization of Work Versus Personal Ties." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 165 (July 2021): 103–114. (Shared Authorship.) View Details
- Yemiscigil, Ayse, Nattavudh Powdthavee, and Ashley V. Whillans. "The Effects of Retirement on Sense of Purpose in Life: Crisis or Opportunity?" Psychological Science 32, no. 11 (November 2021): 1856–1864. View Details
- Collins, Hanne K., Ashley V. Whillans, and Leslie K. John. "Joy and Rigor in Behavioral Science." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 164 (May 2021): 179–191. View Details
- Giurge, Laura M., Ashley V. Whillans, and Ayse Yemiscigil (shared authorship). "A Multicountry Perspective on Gender Differences in Time Use During COVID-19." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118, no. 12 (March 23, 2021). View Details
- Whillans, Ashley V., Leslie Perlow, and Aurora Turek. "Experimenting During the Shift to Virtual Team Work: Learnings from How Teams Adapted Their Activities During the COVID-19 Pandemic." Information and Organization 31, no. 1 (March 2021). View Details
- Giurge, Laura, Ashley V. Whillans, and Colin West. "Why Time Poverty Matters for Individuals, Organisations, and Nations." Nature Human Behaviour 4, no. 10 (October 2020): 993–1003. (Shared Authorship.) View Details
- Smeets, Paul, A.V. Whillans, Rene Bekkers, and Michael I. Norton. "Time Use and Happiness of Millionaires: Evidence from the Netherlands." Social Psychological & Personality Science 11, no. 3 (April 2020): 295–307. View Details
- Dunn, Elizabeth, A.V. Whillans, Michael I. Norton, and Lara B. Aknin. "Prosocial Spending and Buying Time: Money as a Tool for Increasing Subjective Well-Being." Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 61 (2020). View Details
- Kristal, Ariella S., A.V. Whillans, Max Bazerman, Francesca Gino, Lisa Shu, Nina Mazar, and Dan Ariely. "Signing at the Beginning vs at the End Does Not Decrease Dishonesty." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 13 (March 31, 2020). View Details
- Kristal, Ariella S., and A.V. Whillans. "What We Can Learn from Five Naturalistic Field Experiments That Failed to Shift Commuter Behaviour." Nature Human Behaviour 4, no. 2 (February 2020): 169–176. (This article was featured on the cover as the lead article.) View Details
- Whillans, A.V., Lucia Macchia, and Elizabeth Dunn. "Valuing Time Over Money Predicts Happiness After a Major Life Transition: A Preregistered Longitudinal Study of Graduating Students." Science Advances 5, no. 9 (September 2019). View Details
- Whillans, Ashley V., Elizabeth W. Dunn, Paul Smeets, Rene Bekkers, and Michael I. Norton. "Buying Time Promotes Happiness." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, no. 32 (August 8, 2017). (Ranked in the top 100 most talked about articles across science in 2017 (Almetric).) View Details
- Whillans, A.V., E.M. Caruso, and E.W. Dunn. "Both Selfishness and Selflessness Start with the Self: How Wealth Shapes Responses to Charitable Appeals." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 70 (May 2017): 242–250. (This publication was featured as an "Editor's Choice" at Science in January, 2017.) View Details
- Whillans, A.V., S.C. Seider, R. Dwyer, L. Chen, S. Novick, K.J. Graminga, B.A. Mitchell, V. Savalei, S.S. Dickerson, and E.W. Dunn. "Does Volunteering Improve Well-being?" Comprehensive Results in Social Psychology 1, nos. 1-3 (2016): 35–50. View Details
- Whillans, Ashley V., Aaron C. Weidman, and Elizabeth W. Dunn. "Valuing Time Over Money Is Associated with Greater Happiness." Social Psychological & Personality Science 7, no. 3 (April 2016): 213–222. (Most read publication in SPPS in December & January, 2016. This publication was featured in the "Top 10 Insights from the Science of a Meaningful Life in 2016" by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.) View Details
- Whillans, Ashley V., and Elizabeth W. Dunn. "Thinking About Time as Money Decreases Environmental Behavior." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 127 (March 2015): 44–52. View Details
- Selected Book Chapters & White Papers
-
- Lee-Yoon, Alice, and A.V. Whillans. "Making Seconds Count: When Valuing Time Promotes Subjective Well-being." Current Opinion in Psychology 26 (April 2019): 54–57. View Details
- Mogilner, Cassie, A.V. Whillans, and Michael I. Norton. "Time, Money, and Subjective Wellbeing." In Handbook of Well-Being, edited by Ed Diener, Shigehiro Oishi, and Louis Tay. Noba Scholar Handbook Series. Salt Lake City: DEF Publishers, 2018. Electronic. View Details
- De Neve, Jan-Emmanuel, and Council Members: A. Blankson, A. Clark, C. Cooper, H. James, C. Krekel, J. Lim, P. Litchfield, J. Moss, M. I. Norton, M. Rojas, G. Ward, and A.V. Whillans. "Work and Well-being: A Global Perspective." Chap. 5 in Global Happiness Policy Report, edited by Global Council for Happiness and Wellbeing, 74–127. New York: Sustainable Development Solutions Network, 2018. Electronic. View Details
- Selected Working Papers
-
- Ward, George, Hanne Collins, Michael I. Norton, and Ashley V. Whillans. "Work Values Shape the Relationship Between Stress and (Un)Happiness." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-044, September 2020. View Details
- Whillans, A.V., Jessie Pow, and Michael I. Norton. "Buying Time Promotes Relationship Satisfaction." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 18-072, January 2018. (Revised January 2020.) View Details
- Cases and Teaching Materials
-
- Whillans, Ashley, and Hawken Lord. "Ryan Serhant: Time Management for Repeatable Success (A)." Harvard Business School Case 923-048, April 2023. View Details
- Hall, Brian J., Ashley V. Whillans, Davis Heniford, Dominika Randle, and Caroline Witten. "Innovation at Moog Inc." Harvard Business School Case 922-040, March 2022. (Revised January 2023.) View Details
- Beshears, John, and Ashley Whillans. "A Behavioral Science Perspective on Motivation and Incentives." Harvard Business School Module Note 922-033, March 2022. View Details
- Whillans, Ashley, and Jeff Polzer. "Applied: Using Behavioral Science to Debias Hiring." Harvard Business School Case 921-046, March 2021. (Revised September 2021.) (https://www.beapplied.com/.) View Details
- Whillans, Ashley, and Jeff Polzer. "Applied: Using Behavioral Science to Debias Hiring (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 921-047, March 2021. View Details
- Hall, Brian, Lamar Pierce, and Ashley V. Whillans. "Maritz Automotive." Harvard Business School Case 920-052, March 2020. (Revised November 2020.) View Details
- Whillans, Ashley V., and Lamar Pierce. "Maritz Automotive." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 921-044, January 2021. (Revised March 2022.) View Details
- Montgomery, Cynthia A., and Ashley V. Whillans. "France Télécom (A): A Challenging Restructuring." Harvard Business School Case 721-420, December 2020. (Revised June 2021.) View Details
- Montgomery, Cynthia A., and Ashley V. Whillans. "France Télécom (B): A Wave of Staff Suicides." Harvard Business School Supplement 721-421, December 2020. View Details
- Montgomery, Cynthia A., and Ashley V. Whillans. "France Télécom (C): An Unprecedented Trial." Harvard Business School Supplement 721-422, December 2020. View Details
- Whillans, Ashley. "France Télécom (A), (B), and (C)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 722-438, March 2022. (Revised April 2022.) View Details
- Whillans, Ashley V., and Shibeal O'Flaherty. "The What Works Centre: Using Behavioral Science to Improve Social Worker Well-being (A)." Harvard Business School Case 921-020, October 2020. (Revised March 2022.) View Details
- Whillans, Ashley V., and Shibeal O'Flaherty. "The What Works Centre: Using Behavioral Science to Improve Social Worker Well-being (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 921-022, October 2020. (Revised March 2022.) View Details
- Whillans, Ashley V. "The What Works Centre: Using Behavioral Science to Improve Social Worker Well-being (A) and (B)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 921-021, January 2021. (Revised March 2022.) View Details
- Whillans, Ashley, and John Beshears. "Social Salary Setting at Spiber." Harvard Business School Case 920-050, June 2020. (Revised March 2020.) View Details
- Whillans, Ashley, and John Beshears. "Social Salary Setting at Spiber." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 921-014, November 2020. (Revised March 2022.) View Details
- Whillans, Ashley, and Liz Goldenberg. "To Prioritize Money or Time? The P-Mot Exercise (Student)." Harvard Business School Exercise 921-012, August 2020. (Revised October 2020.) View Details
- Whillans, Ashley, and Liz Goldenberg. "To Prioritize Money or Time? The P-Mot Exercise (Instructor)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 921-013, August 2020. (Revised October 2020.) View Details
- Whillans, Ashley V., Esel Çekin, and Alpana Thapar. "Ureed.com: The Marketplace for Language." Harvard Business School Case 920-038, January 2020. View Details
- Whillans, Ashley V. "Ureed.com: The Marketplace for Language." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 921-028, January 2021. (Revised March 2022.) View Details
- Selected Editorials
-
- Howe, Lauren C., Lindsay B. Howe, and Ashley V. Whillans. "The Secret Tax on Women’s Time." Time 201, nos. 5-6 (February 13, 2023): 29. View Details
- Whillans, A.V., and Grant Donnelly. "How Men and Women Treat Deadlines in the Workplace Differently." Wall Street Journal (October 30, 2021). View Details
- Whillans, A.V. "Are New Graduates Happier Making More Money or Having More Time?" Harvard Business Review (website) (July 25, 2019). View Details
- Whillans, A.V. "Time for Happiness: Why the Pursuit of Money Isn't Bringing You Joy—and What Will." Special Issue on HBR Big Idea: Time Poor and Unhappy. Harvard Business Review (website) (January 29, 2019). View Details
- Whillans, A.V., Elizabeth Dunn, and Eugene Caruso. "How to Get the Wealthy to Donate." New York Times (May 12, 2017). View Details
- Whillans, A.V., and Michael I. Norton. "If You Want to Feel Better, Spend Money on Saving Time." Wall Street Journal (online) (September 11, 2017). View Details
- Whillans, A.V., and Elizabeth Dunn. "Want to Be Happier? Buy Yourself More Free Time." Los Angeles Times (July 26, 2017). View Details
- Practitioner Papers
-
- Landry, Anais Thibault, and A.V. Whillans. "The Power of Workplace Rewards: Using Self-Determination Theory to Understand Why Reward Satisfaction Matters for Workers Around the World." Compensation & Benefits Review 50, no. 3 (June 2018): 123–148. View Details
- Thibault-Landry, Anais, Allan Schweyer, and Ashley V. Whillans. "Winning the War for Talent: Modern Motivational Methods for Attracting and Retaining Employees." Compensation & Benefits Review 49, no. 4 (September 2017): 230–246. View Details
- Research Summary
-
Engaged with field work in East Africa, South Asia, and in several large hybrid organizations in the United States, Professor Whillans places a focus on exploring questions with strong theoretical motivation in the social psychological literature and relevant implications for policymakers and managers. Her current research spans three primary interests. First, time demands: how does unpaid labor—such as the long hours spent on chores and childcare—shape the wellbeing and productivity of working women and men—particularly those living in developing markets who are struggling to make ends meet. Second, time negotiations: what factors shape employees’ willingness to access the resources needed to experience wellbeing and succeed in their jobs, such as asking for more time on adjustable deadlines. Third, time-use in hybrid organizations: how can employees and teams structure their time within and across days to predict wellbeing and productivity, and what interventions can be successfully applied to improve the employee experience for knowledge workers employed in time-demanding jobs.
Currently, Professor Whillans is working in the Thar Desert region of India to estimate the impact of a novel time-saving technology—rainwater collection technology (i.e., tankaas)—on the wellbeing and earnings of individual family members within 200 households. This project asks a critical policy question by testing whether and how time-saving technology increases the wellbeing of individuals and families living in an arid agricultural region. This project was motivated by an initial project in Nairobi, Kenya—the largest informal settlement in East Africa—which documented a positive impact of time-saving services (laundry and meals) on the wellbeing of working mothers, and the self-reported earnings of small business owners.
A related project, also set in Nairobi, Kenya, develops a novel behavioral measure of the value of time. This measure is collected daily through behavioral sensing methods and captures changes in opportunity cost within and across people. In doing so, this measure is able to reveal respondents’ economic situations and well-being across time. A pilot project of 500 individuals from the same region using this measure has documented meaningful patterns. For example, women have a higher value of time than men at most hours of the day (contrary to what value of time inferred from labor market wages would suggest), and this difference is especially large in the evening, corresponding to greater housework for women. This measure can also capture the impact of societal events. For example, the national election period is marked by a significantly lower value of time across the board, and especially for women. This result can be explained by an uptick in protests and violence which often disrupts work and makes it especially unsafe for women to be outside, which predicts an increase in idle periods and lower productivity.
In a second stream of research, Professor Whillans and colleagues explore factors that predict whether employees are willing to ask for the resources that they need to succeed in their jobs. This project was motivated by Prof. Whillans’ earlier work showing that women do not ask for time on adjustable deadlines as frequently as men, undermining task performance and wellbeing. In this current investigation, Prof. Whillans is exploring factors like on-the-job experience, social norms, and workplace policies in predicting whether people are comfortable negotiating for time.
In a third stream of research that involves two well-established companies in the United States, Professor Whillans is conducting large-scale descriptive research to explore the relationship between time-use and the employee experience within hybrid organizations. First, cutting-edge machine learning is being used to understand how dispersion patterns have changed in the year following the pandemic, and how changes in where team members are located relative to their peers predicts various aspects of the employee experience. Second, daily-diary research with thousands of employees in a hybrid organization seeks to understand how daily shifts in employee work location (e.g., home vs. office) and location relative to one’s team predicts employees’ experience of wellbeing, stress, connection, and productivity. Finally, a field experiment with two-hundred teams tests whether collaboration norms can reduce the perceived burden of interruptions for hybrid workers and causally improve the employee experience. - Awards & Honors
-
Winner of the 2022 SAGE Emerging Career Trajectory Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP).Second place winner of the Best Book Hindsight Award by Center for Advanced Hindsight in 2020 for Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier LifeTime Smart is Amazon's #1 Time Management in Business New Release.Time Smart named one of Greater Good's Favorite Books of 2020.Time Smart named among Top 10 Business Books by the Globe and Mail in December 2020.Time Smart named among the Notable Behavioral Science books of 2020 by the Behavioral Science & Policy Association.Received Honorable Mention for the 2019 Dissertation Award from the International Positive Psychology Association.Winner of the 2018 Canadian Association for Graduate Studies (CAGS)/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award.Named a “Rising Star of Behavioral Science” in 2018 by the International Policy Exchange and the Behavioral Science & Policy Association.Winner of the 2016 Heritage Foundation Dissertation Award from The Society for Personality & Social Psychology for “Exchanging Seconds for Cents: The Happiness Benefits of Choosing Time Over Money.”Recipient of the 2016 Killam Graduate Teaching Assistant Award, a University-wide award recognizing the top 1% of Teaching Assistants and the most competitive award graduate students can win for teaching at the University of British Columbia.Winner of the 2016 Judgement and Decision Making Pre-Conference Paper Award from the Society for Judgement and Decision Making for “The Benefits and Barriers of Buying Happier Time” with Elizabeth W. Dunn and Michael I. Norton.Named a “Rising Star of Behavioral Science” in 2015 by the International Policy Exchange and the Behavioral Science & Policy Association.Winner of the 2015 Stan Coren Prize for Top Psychology Master’s Thesis from The University of British Columbia.Recipient of the Certificate of Academic Excellence for Top Psychology Master’s Thesis in 2015 from the Canadian Psychological Association.Winner of the 2012 Belkin Award for Top Psychology Honor’s Thesis at The University of British Columbia.Selected in 2012 as a Wesbrook Scholar, a designation given to The University of British Columbia’s top 20 graduating students.Winner of the 2012 Russ Patrick Award for Undergraduate Research Writing, Best Undergraduate Essay, for “The Health Benefits of Helping Others,” at The University of British Columbia.
- Additional Information
- Areas of Interest
- In The News