Austin and Carr Chapter 12 OBM PDF

# Chapter 12: Organizational Behavior Management in Human Service Settings ## Introduction - Applied behavior analysis has a major impact on human services. - Behavior analysis research and application have advanced the treatment capabilities of many human service professions. - The availability o...

# Chapter 12: Organizational Behavior Management in Human Service Settings ## Introduction - Applied behavior analysis has a major impact on human services. - Behavior analysis research and application have advanced the treatment capabilities of many human service professions. - The availability of an effective treatment technology is a necessity but not enough to ensure treatment success. - Agency staff must be proficient in applying the available technology for clients to benefit. ## The Importance of Effective Application in Developmental Disabilities - The importance of effective application is particularly relevant in the field of developmental disabilities. - In most human service settings providing supports for individuals with developmental disabilities, treatment services are provided by personnel without professional training in a clinical field. - Most supports and services are provided by teacher assistants, group home staff, institutional direct support personnel, and vocational support staff. - These individuals typically enter their human service roles with little or no training in how to provide behavioral treatment services. - The lack of training presents serious obstacles to the successful application of effective treatment technologies in behavior analysis. ## The Role of OBM in Human Services - The early investigations on training and managing the treatment-related performance of human service personnel represented the beginning stages of a new specialty area of applied behavior analysis: *Organizational Behavior Management (OBM)*. - The focus of OBM is the use of behavior analytic principles and procedures to enhance work performance. - From the point of view of applied behavior analysis and human services, OBM focuses on improving the operation of human service agencies by maximizing the quality of staff work performance. - This paper reviews the current status of OBM in the human services. ## Organization of Review 1. A summary of the research that resulted in the development of OBM as a specialty area, and its primary procedural technology. 2. A brief overview of more recent OBM research. 3. The relationship of OBM to other supervisory and management approaches used in human services. 4. Areas that warrant continued attention of OBM researchers and practitioners to further enhance OBM’s contribution in the human services, and in applied behavior analysis in general. ## The Research Foundation of Organizational Behavior Management - OBM research has focused on two aspects of staff work performance: 1. Staff having the necessary skills to perform their duties in a competent manner. 2. Staff proficiently applying those skills during the day-to-day work routine. - These two critical aspects are often referred to as *staff training* and *staff management*. ### Staff Training Research - The early investigations focused on training staff in basic behavioral procedures such as reinforcing desirable client behavior, prompting, shaping and extinction. - As researchers recognized the need for staff to be skilled in applying behavioral procedures, they investigated the use of a wider variety of behavioral training procedures to teach staff more varied job responsibilities. - The most prevalent of the behavioral approaches for training staff has been *multifaceted training programs*, which use a large number of behavior change procedures combined into one training program. - The core procedures used in most training programs include: - Verbal Instruction (vocal presentation to staff of rationale, background information and a description of specific job skills) - Written Instruction (self-instructional manuals, commercially available papers or books, performance checklists, pictorial presentation of work duties) - Performance Modeling (demonstration of a work task via live or filmed models) - Performance Practice (rehearsing the skill, often with verbal and/or written instructions) - Performance Feedback (information provided to a staff trainee regarding proficiency in performing the skill, to shape future performance) - Research supports the utility of these approaches for training important work skills to human service staff. - Staff training is often necessary, but rarely sufficient for ensuring quality work performance. - Staff training should be combined with procedures designed to effectively manage staffs' routine application of their job skills in the day-to-day work environment. ### Staff Management Research - OBM research has developed a large and varied number of strategies for managing the work performance of staff. - The strategies are broadly categorized as: - Antecedent Supervisory Procedures (strategies conducted before staff are expected to perform a given work duty) - Consequence Strategies (strategies conducted after staff complete a work duty) - Self-Management Procedures (strategies in which a supervisor systematically involves staff in managing their own performance) - Multifaceted Supervisory Procedures (multifaceted interventions that incorporate antecedent, consequence and/or self-management strategies) - Each category is further discussed in detail in the attached document. ## Recent Research in Organizational Behavior Management - The largest area of OBM investigation in the 1990s is really a continuation of the focus of the preceding two decades – applying behavioral procedures to improve different aspects of human service staff performance. - There is a growing body of work focusing on *increasing the acceptability of OBM procedures among human service staff*. - This research focuses on two primary areas of concern: 1. The impact of the staff's acceptability of management strategies on their work life. 2. The need to enhance agency personnel’s perception of the procedures’ desirability. ## Areas for Future Research in Organizational Behavior Management - OBM research is continually evolving, and there are three major areas in which additional research would be particularly useful: 1. Utilizing OBM strategies to address additional performance areas in a wider variety of human service settings. 2. Long-term, large-scale OBM applications within organizations. 3. Issues affecting adoption of OBM in more organizations. - These areas are further discussed in detail in the attached document. ## Relationship of Organizational Behavior Management to Other Common Management Approaches in the Human Services - OBM is only one of many approaches to management and supervision in human services. - A common characteristic of many human service agencies is the lack of a consistent or organized means of ensuring staff perform their duties in the expected manner. - Many agencies struggle with adopting or maintaining new management approaches. - In some ways OBM has proven to be more durable than most other approaches to human service staff management. - The procedures of OBM are well articulated in terms of what managers and supervisors should do to change or maintain specific areas of staff work performance. - This is in contrast to many other management approaches that don’t specify what should be done to affect staff work performance. - OBM is based in large part on research that demonstrates its effectiveness in actual human service settings. - This provides more visible support for its effectiveness relative to typical management approaches employed in the human services. ## Conclusion - OBM research continues to contribute to a better understanding of human service management. - There is evidence that OBM is a highly effective approach. - However, OBM is often not used as widely in human service agencies as it could be. - Future research is needed to expand the application of OBM within human service agencies and to increase its overall acceptance as a management approach.