Topic: Joe Salatino, President of Great Northern American Case Study

Course name: Bus520 Leadership and Organization

Student's name: Bernadine Wininger

Lecturer's name: Dennis Carlson

2 February 2013

Joe Salatino, President of Great Northern American Case Study

Understanding of customer perceptions and attributions is a vital aspect in ensuring that an organization remains competitive in terms of the products/services it offers and price. Organizations are capable of giving competitive prices and products from perceptions, which they get from their customers (Zeithaml, 2001). Salesmen of an organization have a vital role to play in analyzing people perception and giving feedback to the organization so as to know what commodities or services to recommend and at what price. In this assignment I will discuss issues relating to Joe’s organization and its employees in relation to competence of the organization.

It is vital for Joe’s employees to understand the vitality of how people form perceptions and make attributions in order to maintain competence of the organization. Through this understanding the employees will be capable of advising the organization what it needs to offer the people and at what price the service or commodity will be capable of making vast profits. Through this, the employees will assist the organization to remain competitive to other organizations since it will be capable of matching people’s needs according to their perceptions. This will be possible since the organization will have an understanding of how people perceive the offered products (Foxall et al, 1998). Understanding of how people form perceptions and make attributions is vital in maintaining the competence of the organization since employees will be capable of advising the organization any new commodities or services that it needs to offer depending on attributions that people make. Also, Joe’s employees need to understand the vitality of how individuals form perceptions and make attributions in order to maximize their sales. Since the employees obtain payments through bonus and commissions, it is vital for them to understand how individuals form perceptions and make attributions since this will assist them in knowing what to sell to a certain group of individuals, which will maximize their earnings. In addition, understanding of how people form perceptions and make attributions will be vital to Joe’s employees will be capable of understanding what products certain customers are associated with and it will give them an excellent environment for making sales.

Joe needs to apply operant conditioning learning theory. Operant conditioning constitutes a learning technique, where learning takes place through punishment and rewards for conduct. In operant conditioning, a relationship between a conduct and a result of it prevails (Plunkett et al, 2008). Joe prefers the use of bonuses and commissions in an attempt to encourage employees to realize high sales value. Giving out of a bonus after an employee hits a certain target is a form of encouraging the employees’ behavior. Just like in the learning theory, where a certain conduct is rewarded depending with its consequence, Joe can use the operant conditioning learning theory, where he gives bonuses to employees in accordance to their performance; employees that meet high sales target should obtain exceedingly high bonuses while employees that meet low sales target end up with low or no bonus. These actions of giving no bonus to low performers while rewarding high performers with high bonuses will make low performers improve their behavior in making sales. Joe should also have a system, where he dismisses employees that fail to reach a certain sales target. This will make employees work towards breaking the set minimum sales target. Joe believes that employees that build solid associations with their customers can realize high performers, while those that do not build associations with customers are likely to show low performance.

Since Joe does not want employees that need to be told on what to do, but desires to have employees that recognize and understand their limitations and strength, he needs to apply the operant conditioning theory. This theory will help Joe come up with employees, who are best placed at selling the company products and maintaining its competitiveness since the organization will concentrate on giving rewards according to the performance of employees. Employees, who associate with customers, will have a high opportunity of working in Joe’s organization since they understand their limitations and strengths implying they can thrive in taking initiatives without receiving any instructions on what they need to do. Through applying the operant conditioning theory, Joe will be capable of rewarding his employees according to how they conduct themselves in sales. Since he does not require having low performers, he can dismiss them and find new employees that have high performance levels. This will enhance the competitiveness of Joe’s organization. Operant conditioning theory is the best for Joe to use since he uses reinforcement, which increases or strengthens the conduct of employees. In Joe’s case, he uses commissions and bonuses in order to strengthen the conduct of his employees. This will lead to the adoption of positive conduct by employees, which will be an advantage to Joe’s organization and will improve its performance.

One of the ways that Joe can apply the operant conditioning theory in improving the performance of his employees is through giving bonuses. Joe should ensure that there are various bonus levels. In choosing the bonus levels, Joe needs to set different sales target at which bonuses will be given. Through having different bonus levels, employees will be highly motivated to reach a certain level. Employees will always feel encouraged to move to the next higher level than the first reached because; there is a set bonus at every level. The bonus levels should be arranged in such a way that the bonus increases along with the increasing of sales target level. This will motivate employees to move to high target levels in order to earn high bonuses. As employees are encouraged to move to the high sales levels to earn high bonuses, their performance will become highly enhanced. Therefore, giving bonuses according to sales target levels will improve employees’ performance.

Another way of improving the performance of employees in Joe’s organization using the operant conditioning theory is through punishing non-performers through giving them warnings and dismissing them (Kreitner, 2009). Employees’ records should be well managed in order for the organization to be capable of determining performers and non-performers in the organization. There should be a set sales minimum target, which an employee must reach in order to earn a basic salary. In case an employee is not capable of reaching the fixed target for certain duration, he should be given a warning, which makes him improve the performance. Because of the warnings given, employees will fear that they may become dismissed because of failure to perform and, as a result, improve their performance.

Also, Joe’s organization may apply the theory through promoting and demoting managers. Non-performing managers should be demoted; this will make managers perform since they will fear of becoming demoted from their positions. Joe’s organization needs to stipulate clearly in its hiring policy that non-performing managers will become demoted. This will make managers careful with their performance making them have no option other than improving their performance. This will have a positive impact on all employees as when managers improve their performance; they will influence other staff to do the same. On the other hand, promoting managers based on performance improves the performance of employees since the promoted managers expect employees to perform in order to obtain further promotion. Therefore, Joe’s organization should focus on giving promotions to managers in order to improve the performance of employees.

Joe’s organization believes in hiring employees, who are capable of recognizing their limitations and strengths since employees that understand themselves will be capable of dealing with negative and positive feedbacks from customers. Also, employees that comprehend themselves are capable of thriving well in the organization since they do not need to be advised on what is anticipated of them all the time. In order to hire such individuals, the organization will need to carry out intensive interviews that will help in identifying employees, who understand their own limitations and strengths. Through the intensive interviews the organization will be capable to determine whether the candidates presented for hiring are conversant with their own limitations and strengths. It is vital to check whether the candidates seeking employment in the organization have the required skills that will help the organization enhance its competency to other organizations. In order to hire the most successful individuals communication interviews will be exceedingly crucial. Communication is a crucial aspect required by employees in the organization since employees, who have excellent communication expertise are deemed to be successful in handling customers targeted by Joe’s organization. Therefore, communication interviews will help to select successful individuals to hire in the organization, who can associate well with its customers.

In order to ensure that Joe hires successful individuals in the organization, he needs to offer pre-job training before offering successful candidates the telemarketing job. The pre-job training will help Joe assess the selected candidates for the job. It is through the pre-job training that Joe will be capable of determining those individuals, who have the preferred skills for the telemarketing job in the organization. It is after the pre-job training that Joe will select the successful individuals, who will be capable of dealing with customers to the organization well and capable of maintaining the organization’s competency. Joe requires individuals, who have the ability of maintaining excellent associations with the organization’s customers. It is through the pre-job training that Joe will have the opportunity to evaluate how each individual performs in relation to dealing with customers (Kreitner, 2009). Joe should ensure that he keeps a performance record during the pre-job training regarding individual relationship with customers. It is from the performance records of every individual on pre-job training that will help Joe in coming up with a list of successful individuals, who have excellent associations with customers, pre-job training is vital in determining successful individuals to hire in the organization.

References

Foxall, G. R., Goldsmith, R. E., & Brown, S. W. (1998). Consumer psychology for marketing. London: International Thomson Business Press.

Kreitner, R. (2009). Management. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.

Plunkett, W. R., Attner, R. F., & Allen, G. (2008). Management: Meeting and exceeding customer expectations. Australia: Thomson/South-Western.

Zeithaml, A.V. (2001). Delivering Quality Service. New York: Free Press.