Chapter 5 Motivating behavior

Assume you are Mike Boyle of Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning and one of your employees seems to lack the motivation perform well. When you discuss your concerns with her, you discover that although she values the pay and promotion opportunities of the job, she doesn't believe that pay or promotions are affected by her performance. She is a good trainer and coach and seems to believe that she is capable. If you are trying to help your employee become more motivated, what are the most important things you can do? Check all that apply.

Enhance her performance-to-outcome instrumentality for pay Enhance her performance-to-outcome instrumentality for promotion

It's annual performance feedback time at Allie's Apples, a successful maker of a variety of apple inspired foods. Employees first receive a copy of their performance evaluation via email, then discuss it with their manager within one week to analyze any performance issues and set goals for the next year. In addition, raises are given at this time and communicated to employees when they meet with their manager. Sally has been working in marketing for Allie's Apples for ten years. She has a bachelor's degree in marketing and is a high performer. Sally sets high goals for herself, and often works late to get things done. Dave has been working in marketing for Allie's Apples for five years. He is a solid performer, but not as good as Sally despite having a Master's degree in marketing. He often leaves work a little early to play sports with his friends.

If Sally gets a higher raise than Dave, she is likely to feel equitably treated in comparison to Dave.

Every time the new machine is turned on it beeps loudly until the operator runs a full safety check on it. After the safety check is complete, the beeping stops.

Negative reinforcement

You are the manager of a customer service call center that handles customer inquiries for a large clothing retailer. One of your responsibilities is to use different types of reinforcement to motivate employees to engage in certain behaviors while on the phone with customers. Because you want all employees to stick to the provided script when answering calls, you decide to randomly monitor calls and praise employees who use the script. What type of reinforcement did you use?

Positive reinforcement

Assume you are the owner of Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning and one of your employees who works alone in the back office. This person seems unhappy and unmotivated. He also seems to have a strong need to interact with other people. What might you do to help address this problem?

Provide reassurance and approval to the employee and create opportunities to establish strong friendships.

According to expectancy theory, people will not engage in motivated behavior unless three things are true. First, they must value the expected rewards, and second they must believe their efforts will lead to performance. What is the third requirement for motivated behavior?

They must believe that their performance will result in the desired rewards.

One employee is dissatisfied by low pay and poor working condition, but when the employee receives a raise and better working conditions, he has neutral feelings about his job. It is not until he gets recognition for high achievements on the job that he is satisfied.

Two factor theory

You want all of the receptionists in the company to answer the phone in the same way, and you want this behavior to continue long after you discontinue your reward program. You decide to praise your call center representatives after the third successful call, then the seventh call after that, and then the fourth call after that.

Variable- ratio schedule

You hire three people to be "secret shoppers" at your store at random times. You give employees rewards based on how they do during the secret shoppers' visits.

Variable-interval Schedule

One of your subordinates is very inconsiderate and often leaves his empty coffee cups around the office when he is done rather than throwing them out. You start paying attention to when he throws out his trash and comment on how much this is appreciated and keeps the office looking nice.

behavior modification

Every time the HR representative comes to work dressed in a suit, layoff notices seem to be distributed. You and your colleagues start worrying whenever you see the HR representative dressed up for work.

classical conditioning

Your colleague likes to tell inappropriate jokes before meetings and this makes you and the rest of your team uncomfortable. You and your teammates start ignoring the comments instead of smiling politely when the jokes are told to help eliminate the behavior.

extinction

After watching a coworker get in trouble for deviating from the call center script while handling a customer, you decide to always say exactly what the company wants you to when speaking with customers.

social learning

To minimize the need for retraining employees, you use _______because it Is the most effective reinforcement schedule for sustaining a behavior.

variable reinforcement