Managers applying reinforcement theory to shape and reshape employee behaviors business

The purpose of this study is to discourse about directors using Reinforcement theory to determine and reshape employee behaviours to get the better of the restraining forces of alteration.

Directors can use reinforcement theory to actuate the employees of the organisation and to understand the demands of the workers and handle them equitably and actuate them by increasing the wage or by giving fillips to accomplish the ends and values of the organisation.

The chief aim of this study is to critically discourse about support theory and the types of support theory to actuate the employees of the organisation and to see how directors apply the basic rules of support theory to promote coveted behaviour and detering the unsought behaviour through the usage of reinforces such as wage, assessments, publicities and giving them more ambitious undertakings to increase the efficiency of employees.

This study on reinforcement theory gives the in depth position on B. F. Skinner support theory and a complete information on his positions and besides the restrictions of support theory.

Chapter 2

Analysis

Reinforcement theory is defined as the procedure of determining the single behaviour by honoring the desired behaviour and penalizing the unsought behaviour.

2. 1 Background and Development of Reinforcement Theory

BF Skinner and his associates proposed reinforcement theory of motive. Reinforcement theory ( besides called as operant Conditioning ) states that individuali?? s behaviour is a map of its effects. It is based on i?? law of effecti?? .

2. 2 Law of Effect

OB Mod relies to a great extent on the jurisprudence of consequence, which states that a individual tends to reiterate behaviour that is accompanied by favourable effects ( support ) and tends non to reiterate behaviour that is accompanied by unfavourable effects. ( i?? Newstrom W. John, p no 111i?? )

Reinforcement theory of motive looks out on the perceptual experience of persons. This theory focuses wholly on what happens to an person when he takes some action. Therefore, harmonizing to Skinner, the external environment of the organisation must be designed efficaciously and positively so as to actuate the employee. This theory is applied for analysing commanding mechanism for individuali?? s behaviour. However, it does non concentrate on the causes of individuali?? s behaviour.

2. 3 Behavior Modification

Organizational behaviour alteration, or OB Mod, is the application in organisations of the rules of behavior alteration, which evolved from the work of B. F. Skinner. OB Mod and the following several theoretical accounts are process theories of motive, since they provide positions on the kineticss by which employees can be motivated. ( i?? Newstrom W. John, p no 111i?? ) The figure below illustrates the basic stairss in OB mod.

Beginning: Organizational Behavior: Pull offing Peoples and Organizations by Ricky W. Griffin, Gregory Moorhead

The first measure is to place public presentation related behavioural events that are the desirable and unwanted behaviours. A director of a eating house might make up one’s mind the most of import behaviour for the steward is to recognize clients heartily and function them.

The 2nd measure in behavior alteration is for, directors to baseline the public presentation of each person which is normally calculated in per centum across different clip intervals. Example if any gross revenues representative is acquiring about 25 % of the entire gross revenues as required by the company.

The 3rd measure is to place bing behavior eventualities or effects of public presentation precisely how the employee is executing.

The 4th measure is to develop intercession schemes in other words some component of the public presentation reward- linkage i?? structure, procedure, engineering, groups, or undertakings is changed to do high degree public presentation more rewarding.

After the intercession measure, the director once more measures public presentation to find whether the coveted consequence has been achieved. If non director must once more re design the intercession scheme or reiterate the full procedure.

Following measure is to keep desirable behaviours through positive support for illustration allowing inducements every clip a coveted behaviour is shown by the employee.

Finally, directors has to measure public presentation direction as to how the employee are executing and by offering long term wagess like addition in wage, publicity to prolong on-going attempts to better public presentation. ( Griffin W. Rickey 9th edition, p no 108i?? )

Chapter 4

Types of Support

Reinforcement Methods

Beginning: The basicss of Organization Behavior by Henri L. Tossi, Neal P. Mero

3. 1 Positive Support:

Thomas J. Peters, writer of In Search of Excellence, emphasizes that organisations endeavoring for success demand to i?? celebrate what you want to see more ofi?? from your employees. In order to make this it is indispensable to understand the construct of positive support and its easy integrating into your organisation.

Positive support is a standard analysing tool that can be used in workplace, educational establishments and even in our twenty-four hours to twenty-four hours life, which is connected to public presentation or behaviour.

Positive support is used by directors to pull out the coveted behaviour from the employee maintaining organisation success in head.

Positive support can be achieved by detecting and caring about an employee, positive support has a major impact on employee motive, satisfaction, productiveness and trueness in achieving single success. As good employee success contributes to the overall betterment in the organizationi?? s public presentation. As all of these consequences and success factors of positive support Begin to come together, your organisation will jump in front in its progressively competitory market place.

Positive support in an organisation can be achieved in many ways like praising the employee if he has achieved his mark and giving inducements if the employee has completed the undertaking for the month and taking the squad out for a dinner and appreciate their attempt and besides directors can supply preparation to the employees who has achieved the ends and aims of the organisation. This will be instantly followed by the positive behaviour ; the employee will see a nexus between behaviour and positive effects and will be motivated to reiterate similar behaviours in future. And employees tend to reiterate the same in order to derive grasp.

Determining is a methodical and progressive application of positive support. It occurs when more frequent, or more powerful, supports are in turn given as the employee comes closer to the desired behavior8. Even though the coveted behaviour is non shown by the employee, it will be encouraged by giving support for behaviour in the right way. Determining can be used by directors to develop the employee for complex tasks/assignments.

3. 2 Negative Support:

Negative support is one which involves the remotion of unsought behaviour of an employee. Negative support is besides known as Avoidance. In other words negative support is used to increase the coveted behaviour. Rather than having a wages following a desirable behaviour, the individual is given the chance to avoid an unpleasant effect ( Griffin W. Rickey 9th edition, p no 108i?? ) .

This besides involves remotion of obnoxious results one time desired behaviour is demonstrated. Example of common unsought behaviour of employee in an organisation

i?? Employees hotfooting and non choice look intoing their ain work.

i?? Talking to co-workers alternatively of reacting to clients in a timely mode which hampers the growing of the organisation

i?? Being unpleasant, ill-mannered or argumentative to team couples.

i?? Opposing all betterment suggestions made by the directors.

i?? Repeatedly raising fiddling issues.

i?? Taking inordinate interruptions.

i?? Not demoing involvement in larning new things related to work.

Directors can use negative support theory to command the behaviour of the employee

Example 1: if the employee is non demoing involvement in the work and is demoing insouciant attitude, directors can talk to the employee and cut down the inducement so that tax write-off may rectify the behaviour of the employee, so here incentive Acts of the Apostless as a accelerator to alter the behaviour of the employee.

Example 2: Directors pressurize the employee if the report/project is non completed on clip, these consequences in employee finishing the report/project to avoid force per unit area from the director.

Negative support is frequently confused with penalty, but they are non the same. Punishment efforts to diminish the chance of specific behaviours ; negative support efforts to increase coveted behaviour.

Negative support can be used efficaciously by directors to reshape the behaviour of the employee in the organisation and alteration to want behaviour. So negative support is one of the standard reinforce that can be used by directors.

3. 3 Punishment:

Punishment is another procedure in support theory which directors can implement on employee to cut down the frequence of unwanted behaviours.

Punishment is an unpleasant, or aversive, effect of a behaviour. Examples of penalty are verbal or written rebukes, wage cut, layoffs, loss of privileges and may be expiration. ( Griffin W. Rickey 9th editioni?? )

Punishment is different from negative support, in negative support is used to increase the coveted behaviour of the employee whereas in penalty the unpleasant behaviour is eliminated by holding a negative event which follows the behaviour of the employee. Here in penalty the employee stops or avoids unwanted effects. Punishment must be used as a tool to alter the behaviour of the employee and give employee a opportunity to rectify his behaviour. Besides unsought behaviour may far make negative effects if they go unpunished. ( Griffin W. Rickey 9th edition, p no 105i?? )

Example 1: Director must penalize the employee if he continues to underachieve after several warnings and does non demo any betterments.

Punishment should be used as a last resort to alter the behaviour of the employee because it may set batch of force per unit area and emphasis which may ensue in unpredictable result.

Punishment may non permanently extinguish unsought behaviour because sometimes it will be non holding an option to the desired behaviour.

3. 4 Extinction:

Extinction is referred as riddance of coveted behaviour when manageri?? s hold back positive support. If wagess are withdrawn for behaviours that were antecedently reinforced, the behaviours will likely go less frequent and die out. ( Griffin W. Rickey 9th edition, p no 105i?? )

The behaviour of the employee is no longer reinforced and is less likely to happen in future and may impact the organisation growing, while positive support contributes to the overall growing of the organisation extinction can halter the growing by non acknowledging employee public presentation.

Example 1: If the employee is continually praised for the promptitude in which he completes his work for several months, but receives no congratulations in subsequent months for such behaviour, his desirable behaviours may decrease.

Therefore, Extinction is the most of import portion of support theory because it may impact the employee productiveness or creativeness which reflects in the employee public presentation. So as to avoid unwanted extinction, directors may hold to go on to offer positive behavioural effects and keep his good public presentation.

If directors unwittingly or otherwise, halt honoring valuable behaviours such as good public presentation, those behaviours may besides go nonextant. ( Griffin W. Rickey 9th edition, p no 105i?? )

Chapter 5

Agendas of Support

Agendas of support theory are based on when directors should use different types of support theory to determine or reshape the coveted behaviour of the employees. Using different types wholly depends on the state of affairs.

The tabular array below shows summarizes the five basic support agendas that directors can utilize

Beginning: Organizational Behavior: Pull offing Peoples and Organizations by Ricky W. Griffin, Gregory Moorhead

The two chief types of support agendas are uninterrupted and intermittent. Although the agenda of support frequently depends on practical considerations, support is ever delivered harmonizing to some agenda. ( i?? Slocump W. John no 108i?? )

5. 1 Continuous Support

Continuous support wagess behaviour every clip it occurs. Continuous support is really effectual in actuating desirable behaviours, particularly in the early phases of acquisition, when the end is to familiarise the employee being conditioned with the basic land regulations of the state of affairs. Continuous support must be provided quickly and systematically in order to work. Directors must closely supervise the behaviour of the employee to honor every clip he delivers desirable behaviours. Partial support may impact the employee from demoing coveted behaviour, if the employee is praised for every clip he completes his work and will non have any acclaim for the subsequent works done, the employee may halt seting the excess attempt.

Every clip support is applied it strengthens behavior, so uninterrupted support leads to really rapid additions in the rate of behaviour. It is particularly utile, so, when the undertaking is to determine up some new behaviour or behaviour concatenation. ( i?? Chance Paul, p no 177i?? )

5. 2 Fixed Interval Reinforcement

Fixed interval support is defined as the support agenda where wagess are spaced at unvarying degrees. The critical variable is clip, and it is held changeless. This is the prevailing agenda for most salaried employees11.

Examples of fixed interval support may be monthly wages given to employee, wage look into given on hebdomadal footing ; employees are rewarded on a fixed interval support agenda. ( i?? Robbins, Judge, Millet, p no 59i?? )

In fixed interval support employee are non rewarded whenever they show coveted behaviour, they will be rewarded on a monthly, hebdomadal footing unlike in uninterrupted support employee will be rewarded every clip a coveted behaviour is occurred.

Unfortunately, in many state of affairss the fixed interval agenda does non needfully keep high public presentation degrees.

Example: if employees know that they will be paid and visited by director on a hebdomadal footing, they may be motivated to work hard at that point of clip, to derive congratulations and acknowledgment. And other yearss of the hebdomad the employees may non work so difficult because they have learned that support is improbable except during the hebdomadal visit.

5. 3 Variable Interval Reinforcement

Variable support uses clip as the footing for using support, but it varies the interval between support. This agenda is inappropriate for paying rewards, but it can work good for other types of positive support such as congratulations and acknowledgment and for turning away. ( i?? Griffin W. Ricky, 9th Edition, p no 105i?? )

Sing the above illustration for variable support if manageri?? s visits employees work Stationss any clip during the hebdomad, so they will be holding no thought of when the director will be sing their work Stationss, so employee will be motivated to work hard for a longer period of clip.

5. 4 Fixed Ratio

In a fixed- ratio agenda, after a fixed or changeless sum figure of responses are given, a wages is initiated. ( i?? Robbins, Judge, Milleti?? )

With fixed-ratio support, the figure of behaviours needed to obtain support is changeless. Fixed interval means it happens at the same rate at the same clip. Like an allowance that you receive on the 20th of every month.

5. 5 Variable Ratio

Variable Ratio support, the figure of behaviours required for support varies over clip. An employee executing under a variable ratio agenda is motivated to work hard because each successful behaviour increases the chance that the following 1 will ensue in reinforcement14. ( i?? Griffin W. Ricky, 9th Edition, p no 106i?? )

Variable ratio support tends to be the most powerful of the full support agendas because in variable ratio the figure of coveted behaviour required for support is non of import, intervals between support is really important, interval between support must non be excessively long that the employee will be demotivated and stops seeking it.

Example: Variable ratio refers to acquiring different sum money at different times. This could be seen in person who is paid in committee – the more autos a individual sells, the more money he makes, therefore it is a ratio and he/she doesni?? t cognize how many autos they are traveling to sell to do money, so they must sell as many autos as possible.

Chapter 6

Bing a Motivating Manager

In old chapters we have discussed about the types and agendas of support, in this chapter we will discourse few points about how director should actuate the employee in order to acquire the best consequences out of them:

1 ) Dainty staff well:

Manager has to be friendly with the full employees in the organisation and besides has to keep a degree of distance with his staff, which is bit complicated. Manager should actuate the employee by holding timely treatments and group meetings and promoting them for the coveted behaviour. Small gestures of this type aid in constructing up of a affable relationship.

( 2 ) Acknowledge the differences:

Acknowledging the difference is really hard on the manageri?? s portion, which should be carried out really carefully because all the employees in the organisation vibrate to a different gait, so actuating one employee may impact other employee growing and can besides demotivated him/her. Understanding and acknowledging the differences between the person is really of import.

( 3 ) Set realistic ends:

Set moderate ends. Puting excessively high a undertaking creates a feeling of non-achievement, right from the get downing itself. The ends set should be such which seem executable to the employees to be achieved. A somewhat higher mark than expected provides a challenge.

( 4 ) Prevent Demonization:

The occupation of the director is to actuate the employee working under him, the function of director includes both actuating and penalizing the employee, but penalty must be used as an last resort to alter the behaviour of the employee else it may impact the productiveness of the employees.

( 5 ) Non-financial wagess:

Apart from giving inducements, wage rise, director has to concentrate on non-monetary wagess such as an achievement award or a missive of grasp which boosts the efficiency of the staffs to work harder and besides derive more awards in future which will make a competitory environment in the work topographic point.

Chapter 7

Decision

Reinforcement theory explains in item how an single learns behavior. Directors who are doing effort to actuate the employees must guarantee that they do non honor all employees at the same time. They must state the employees what they are non making correct and steer them decently to guarantee that all the employee work towards accomplishing the organisation success.

The chief aim of support theory is to guarantee that employees perform the undertakings assigned to them every bit fast as they can, take new undertakings and set their upper limit attempts in accomplishing the undertakings and increase at that place efficiency.

Manager must see the employees in the human position and non in concern position, so director must give opportunities to the employees to travel towards the coveted behaviour from the unsought, which helps both the employee in increasing the frequence of coveted behaviour and directors to be successful and construct a good resonance with the employees.