Using the Premack Principle to Reinforce Work with Work
The incentive programs used to reduce tardiness and absenteeism illustrated the effectiveness of one of the simplest intervention strategies-the addition of a reinforcer. The feasibility of this strategy for first-line managers concerned with individual employee behavior problems is limited: Most managers do not have discretionary funds from which to draw incentives, and there are potential problems in placing one or two employees in a division or office on an incentive system. Rearrangement of existing contingencies is a simple reinforcement strategy that bypasses these problems. Here, there is no addition; rather, the sequence of events is rearranged so that an existing reinforcer follows the behavior to be increased.
One often overlooked reinforcer is favored work-tasks that employees tend to do first can be used to reinforce those they tend to leave until last. Salespeople, for example, often call their old clients first and put off calling new clients. This can be reinforcing, because old clients are probably easier to sell to. Consequently, it is often difficult for the sales manager to motivate salespeople to call on new clients.
Ted Gupton and Michael LeBow demonstrated how to use the Premack principle to solve this problem. Two part-time telephone solicitors were employed to sell new appliance service contracts (warranties) and to renew old ones. During the first ten sessions the salesmen could phone warranty and renewal customers in any order they chose. As expected from previous experience, the percentage of calls which resulted in sales was higher for renewing old contracts (31 and 27 percent, respectively) than it was for selling new contracts (13 and 10 percent, respectively). In other words, renewing previously existing contracts that were about to expire was a high-probability behavior, whereas selling new contracts to new customers was a low-probability behavior, During the next ten sessions the salesmen's opportunity to make five renewal calls was made contingent on their selling a new contract, not just calling a new customer. Each salesman was instructed that after he made one warranty sale he could make five renewal calls (five renewal calls usually resulted in a sale). Using renewal calls as a reinforcer had a significant impact on the percentage of warranty sales made. Both salesmen increased the number of warranty sales (10 and 21 percent, respectively). Unexpectedly Gupton and LeBow discovered that both salesmen made more renewal sales as well (4 and 22 percent, respectively). During the final ten sessions the men were told that they could once again call customers in any order they chose. The percentage of warranty sales took a dramatic nose dive. After the contingencies for warranty sales were removed, neither salesman made any warranty calls. The number of renewal sales also dropped. For the first sales man, the percentage dropped only one percent, whereas the percentage of renewal calls by the second salesman dropped by 21 percent.
Although there are few systematic evaluations of the application of the Premack principle in organizational settings, this study points to its potential cost-effectiveness. Not only did the low-probability behavior of making warranty calls increase substantially, but the high probability behavior of making renewal sales increased as well. In other words, productivity increased in both cases, and there was none of the expense involved in giving bonuses.
Interestingly, the intervention had more of an impact on one of the salesmen; the second salesman's performance increased more than did the first ones. Stated another way, the reinforcer was more effective with the second salesman. This once again points to the importance of tailoring the reinforcers to the individual.
An interesting feature of the Gupton-LeBow study is that they did not tell the salesmen how sales should be accomplished, only that they must be closed before the salesmen could call the renewal customers. Although one salesman showed a greater increase than the other, both showed a significant increase compared with their previous performance. Leaving it up to the individual salesmen to determine their own method of improving their efficiency not only resulted in increased sales, but the salesmen reported that they felt they were being allowed to follow their own unique styles rather than being encouraged to imitate that of someone else. The company was perceived as finally recognizing their individual talents and the salesmen actually enjoyed producing a higher sales rate. This contrasts with the commonly reported feeling of being made by the company to run faster to keep up. They reported that their success genuinely reflected their own talents. On the other hand, the salesmen's program did not employ the use of goal-setting. Goal-setting has a powerful positive impact on performance. Had the salesmen been assigned goals, their percentage of warranty sales may have increased even more.
Using Goal-Setting as an Antecedent for Performance
In this strategy, an assigned objective or goal acts as an antecedent which elicits improved performance. The new higher level of performance is then reinforced. Gary Latham and Sydney Kinne demonstrated the effectiveness of goal-setting in a program conducted with 20 pulpwood-logging operators. Half of the producers were trained in goal-setting and half were not. Each week the trainer and producer determined minimum production goals. Using the goal-setting training, the producer converted the goal into cords-per-saw-hand-hour and assigned it to the workers who directly controlled that production variable-the sawyers themselves. The sawyers were told that the goal was a minimum standard. They monitored their performance with tally meters. Both control and target producers recorded production, turnover, absenteeism, and injuries for their crews.
Results after 12 weeks revealed that compared with control producers, producers who set goals increased their production and decreased their absenteeism significantly. There was no change in turn over or injury rates. Latham and Kinne hypothesized that it was the sense of satisfaction that comes with accomplishing a goal that led to a reduction in absenteeism. Work becomes more rewarding and consequently worker attendance increases.
Let's take a closer look at each aspect of this more complex intervention. First, the goals set were clear, specific, and attainable. Goals were stated in terms of workers' tasks: Sawyer goals were set in terms of cords-per-saw-hand-hour and producer goals were in terms of cords-per-man-hour. The goals clarified for both supervisor and subordinate what they were to get done. By providing specific knowledge about job tasks and priorities, the goals prompted improved performance. But improved performance must be rapidly and frequently reinforced if it is to be maintained and if goal-setting is to be established as a controlling stimulus. The data collection and self-monitoring procedures solved this problem. Sawyers recorded how much wood they cut, and producers recorded the collective productivity rates of the sawyers they supervised. In the process of recording, each received immediate feedback on performance.
Comparisons between the goal and feedback tend to have two results: When people attain or surpass a goal, they tend to reinforce themselves with positive thoughts-a sense of satisfaction. If they fall short of the goal, their tendency will be to exert more effort to improve performance, provided that positive consequences seem probable-that is, people must see the goal as attainable and believe that they will be reinforced for achieving it. In this program the goals were determined from an assessment of the harvest area and time studies made under similar conditions. There were no penalties for failure; rather, praise was given for goal attainment. Thus, producers and sawyers alike were likely to have viewed their goals as attainable and were motivated to achieve them. When they did reach the goal, they were reinforced externally with praise and internally with self-reinforcement. In this way, goals became antecedents that elicited improved performance.
We would expect that goal-setting plus self-feedback would promote the learning of self-management or of self-directed behavior.
The intervention sets the stage for employees to learn to set their own task goals and to reinforce themselves for reaching them. The super visor seems to be a critical factor in this process. Ronan, Latham, and Kinne conducted another program with loggers which demonstrated that high-productivity crews had supervisors who were more accessible and who gave more training, instruction, and explanation, whereas crews with inaccessible supervisors had higher turnover rates. Supervisors can teach subordinates to set individual task goals and thus reinforce their accomplishment. In other words, in the process of setting goals with employees, the supervisor probably informally arranges the conditions for learning of self-management to occur.
