Case Study 1: “The case of the manager who doubled productivity”

In order for Cliff to take advantage of principles of operant conditioning to modify his staff’s behavior, he would have to be begin rewarding his employees and complimenting them on a job well done once he would see an employee working hard and well enough. It would boost up the employees confidence to continue to work hard and do a good job.

Cliff’s predecessor’s strategy of punishing undesirable behavior not work very well because that just made the best employees in the staff quit and leave and make the remaining employees feel as if even if they would work there hardest the manager still wouldn’t be happy with them. In order to get someone you need to give something in return. Punishing the staff would just be them giving you the productivity you need but they get so positive advantage in return.

Cliff made a lot of use of partial reinforcements schedules were he would set dates and times where he would go out of his way to show his employees how grateful he is for all their hard work. For example, he set daily production goals. Each time that goal was met he would buy each employee lunch every Friday.

In order for Cliff to use his own technique to train his staff to complete a complex new task they had never done before, he would set goals and spot checks to make sure what the staff members were doing and if they needed any assistance.

Cliff can make use of principles of cognitive learning theory to improve his staff’s productivity even further by asking the employees for hard work and consistency while