Organizational Behavior Management in Human Service Settings PDF

# Chapter 12: Organizational Behavior Management in Human Service Settings ## An area of major impact of applied behavior analysis - Behavior analysis research and application have advanced the treatment capabilities of essentially every type of human service profession. - The scope of the treatm...

# Chapter 12: Organizational Behavior Management in Human Service Settings ## An area of major impact of applied behavior analysis - Behavior analysis research and application have advanced the treatment capabilities of essentially every type of human service profession. - The scope of the treatment technology developed through applied behavior analysis is well illustrated in the diverse and comprehensive topics reviewed in Chapters 1 - 12 of this text. - The availability of an effective treatment technology is a necessity if human service agencies are to successfully provide supports and services desired by the agencies' consumer clientele. - However, such availability does not ensure the treatment success of respective agencies. - Equally important as the availability of an effective treatment technology is the effective application of the technology. - Agency staff must proficiently apply the available technology if agency clients are to benefit from respective treatment procedures. - The importance of effective application of behavioral treatment procedures is perhaps best illustrated in the field of developmental disabilities. - In most human service settings providing supports for individuals with developmental disabilities, the vast majority of treatment services are provided by personnel who do not have professional training in a clinical field. - The lack of training presents serious obstacles to the successful application of effective treatment technologies in behavior analysis. - Recognition of the difficulties in applying behavioral treatment procedures in typical human service agencies occurred relatively early in the development of applied behavior analysis. ## Organization of Review - The review is organized into four main sections. - In the first section, a summary is presented of the research that resulted in the development of OBM and its primary procedural technology. - In the second section, a brief overview of more recent OBM research is presented. - In the third section, the relationship of OBM to other supervisory and management approaches that are common in the human services will be described. - In the fourth section, areas will be discussed that warrant continued attention of OBM researchers and practitioners. ## The Research Foundation of Organizational Behavior Management - Organizational Behavior Management has focused on two aspects of staff work performance: - having the necessary skills to perform their duties - applying those skills proficiently during the day-to-day work routine. - The focus of OBM has resulted in two major areas of OBM research and application: staff training and staff management. ## Staff Training Research - Investigators recognized the need for human service staff to be skilled in applying behavioral procedures if many persons with disabilities were to benefit from the developing behavioral technology. - Reviewing successful demonstrations that reinforcing desirable client behavior, prompting, shaping and extinction, researchers began to investigate use of a wider variety of behavioral training procedures to train staff in more varied job responsibilities. - The most prevalent of the behavioral approaches for training work skills to staff has been multifaceted training programs. - Multifaceted approaches involve the use of a large number of behavior change procedures that are combined into one training program. - However, there is also a basic set of training procedures that represents the core of most multifaceted staff training programs: - verbal instruction - written instruction - performance modeling - performance practice - performance feedback. - Reviews of the research on vocal and written instruction have indicated these procedures are generally best suited for teaching verbal skills to staff (i.e., the ability to discuss the subject matter) in contrast to teaching performance skills (i.e., how to actually do a job). - Job related verbal skills are of course important, in that being able to articulate the requirements of a job task can enhance staffs' understanding of their job requirements. - However, being able to discuss the requirements and other aspects of a job does not ensure that staff actually know how to perform the job proficiently. - Typically, for training programs to be effective in teaching performance skills to staff, instructions must be combined with more performance-based staff training strategies such as performance modeling, practice and feedback. ## Staff Management Research - Research in OBM has developed a large and varied number of strategies for managing, or supervising, the work performance of staff in human service agencies. - Management procedures for changing and maintaining ongoing work performance generally have been grouped into four categories: - antecedent management strategies - consequence strategies - self-management procedures - multifaceted programs. ### Antecedent supervisory procedures - Antecedent supervisory procedures are strategies conducted before staff are expected to perform a given work duty and are intended to increase the likelihood that staff will complete the work duty in a satisfactory manner. - One of the most frequently researched antecedent procedures involves on-the-job instructions such as brief verbal directions, memoranda, and instructional meetings. - Instructional strategies used as part of an ongoing staff management program are intended to prompt staffs' performance in regard to something the staff know how to do, in contrast to instructional procedures used in staff training. - These types of procedures can be effective in changing staff performance if the desired performance does not represent a major or long-term alteration in staffs' routine work activities. - However, these procedures usually have little impact on changing staff performance that occurs frequently during the routine work day or week. - An antecedent management procedure similar to instructions involves increasing job structure. - Increasing the structure of a staff person's job refers to a precise elaboration regarding what a staff person is expected to do, when and how often it should be done, where the job duty should occur, with whom it should be done and with what materials. - Increasing job structure differs from on-the-job instruction by providing considerably more direction to staff regarding the expected performance of a particular job duty. - Another type of antecedent management procedure, performance modeling, involves providing a physical demonstration of the desired work behavior in a manner similar to that described with staff training. - The intent of modeling as a management procedure is to provide an immediate prompt in staffs' work area for staff to perform a certain job duty. ### Consequence management procedures - The most important contribution of OBM in regard to managing the work performance of human service staff has been the demonstration of systematic use of performance consequences to improve day-to-day work performance. - Most consequence procedures involve some type of feedback, through which information about staff work performance is presented to staff. - In addition to descriptive or factual information about a staff member's performance, most management applications of feedback in the research literature also provide evaluative judgements about the adequacy of staff performance. - Evaluative comments are generally included because the comments appear to improve the performance enhancement efficacy of descriptive feedback procedures. - A variety of formats for providing feedback to staff have been evaluated in OBM investigations, including spoken or verbal feedback, privately written feedback, and publicly posted feedback. ### Self-management procedures - Self-management strategies involves many of the antecedent and consequence procedures just described. - The primary difference is that whereas the management approaches discussed earlier are dependent upon supervisors for implementation, with self-management strategies a supervisor systematically involves staff in managing their own performance. - The most frequently investigated self-management procedure has been self-recording, in which staff maintain records of their performance. - Other types of self-management procedures include goal setting and self-reinforcement. - Self-reinforcement refers to staff providing themselves with a positive consequence following some pre-specified work performance. ### Multifaceted supervisory procedures - Multifaceted staff management approaches incorporate a large number of antecedent, consequence and/or self-management strategies into one supervisory intervention. - The rationale behind the use of multifaceted management programs is basically an attempt to maximize the probability of resolving a staff performance problem. - By combining a number of procedural components - each of which at times can singularly bring about behavior change - into one management program, the probability of resolving the problem of concern is enhanced relative to relying on one procedure alone. - Multifaceted programs often represent the management approach of choice for resolving intractable staff performance problems. - Multifaceted management programs have been used to address a wide range of staff performance issues in human services including absenteeism, administrative performance, client teaching skills, health and safety routines, and therapeutic interactions with consumers. - However, one disadvantage of these types of management strategies is that due to the large number of procedural components involved, the approaches can be relatively effortful and time consuming for supervisors to use on a routine basis. ## Recent Research in Organizational Behavior Management - OBM research generally can be categorized within three main areas: - continuation of early research focus - expansion of OBM procedures - increasing the acceptability of OBM procedures ### Continuation of Early Research Focus - The largest area of OBM investigation in the 1990s is really a continuation of the focus of the preceding two decades of OBM research. - Investigators have continued to apply various types of behavioral procedures to improve different aspects of human service staff performance. - Relative little attention has been directed in the more recent research to applying antecedent and self-management procedures. - Most current research includes antecedent and self-management procedures usually only as part of multifaceted programs in contrast to singular applications of the respective procedures. ### Expanded Variety of Human Service Agencies - Related to the OBM research focus noted, recent investigations have begun to expand the types of human service settings in which OBM procedures have been used successfully to improve staff work performance. - Such expansion is most apparent in agencies serving individuals with developmental disabilities, which continue to represent the most common type of human service setting in which OBM research is conducted. - Expansion in the types of developmental disabilities agencies in which OBM applications have been investigated has paralleled changes in the developmental disabilities field in general. - Since that general time period, there has been a consensus in the developmental disabilities field that the quality of life of individuals with these types of disabilities is improved by moving from, or never entering, institutional settings in lieu of smaller community-based living arrangements. - Correspondingly, there has been a decrease in OBM research in institutional settings and an increase in research in community settings such as group homes. ### Increasing the Acceptability of Organizational Behavior Management - A third area in which recent OBM research has focused pertains to increasing the acceptability of OBM procedures among persons working in human service agencies. - This body of research was initiated for two primary reasons: - it has become well recognized that use of management strategies that staff find acceptable can have a beneficial impact on the quality of staffs' work life relative to management procedures that staff find unacceptable. - one means of increasing the use of OBM procedures among more human service agencies may be to enhance the degree to which agency personnel find the procedures desirable. - Staff acceptance of OBM management strategies tend to be more acceptable to staff relative to other types of management approaches with which staff are familiar. ### Relationship of Organizational Behavior Management to Other Common Management Approaches in the Human Services - Organizational Behavior Management represents only one of many approaches to management and supervision in the human services. - A common characteristic of human service management in many agencies is the lack of a consistent or organized means of attempting to ensure staff perform their duties in the expected manner. - Relatedly, many agencies have attempted to adopt a particular management approach but the attempts have proven unsuccessful. - In some ways, OBM has been more durable than most other approaches to human service staff management. - Two characteristics of OBM probably have played a major role in the continuation of OBM as a management option in the human services: - the management 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. - OBM has more visible support for its effectiveness relative to typical management approaches employed in the human services. ## Areas for Future Research in Organizational Behavior Management - OBM research conducted over the last three decades has resulted in an impressive technology for managing staff performance in the human services, but the technology is not yet complete, nor is the available technology used to the degree it could be used to enhance the human services. - There are three major areas in which additional research would be particularly useful: - utilizing OBM strategies to address additional performance areas of concern in a wider variety of human service settings - large scale/long term OBM applications within organizations - issues affecting the adoption of OBM as the management approach of choice across a larger number of human service organizations ### Extension of the Existing Technology to Additional Performance Areas and Types of Human Service Settings - The most common human service setting in which OBM research has occurred has been large residential centers for people with developmental disabilities. - Additional research is needed to examine the extent to which components of the OBM technology evaluated in one type of setting can be generalized to staff performance in other types of service settings, each of which has unique concerns regarding staff performance and quality supports and services. - Determining how OBM may enhance staff performance in work places where supervisors are infrequently present represents one of many important research questions for applying OBM to the increasing number of community living arrangements in which human service supports are currently offered. - The number of investigations has not kept pace with the rapid increase in number and type of community organizational settings in which supports and services are provided for people with developmental and related disabilities. - The vast majority of OBM research conducted to date has targeted the performance of paraprofessional or direct support staff in human services. - The performance of professional staff (other than teachers) has been the focus of OBM investigations much less frequently. - There is a need to demonstrate effective strategies for teaching professional staff to transfer their specialized skills to the day-to-day performance repertoires of paraprofessional staff. ### Long-Term/Large-Scale Applications of Organizational Behavior Management - A key direction for future research is to expand the scope of OBM within respective human service agencies by evaluating the efficacy of OBM procedures over extended periods of time, and to determine variables associated with long-term effectiveness. - To be truly effective, a management approach must not only effectively prevent and resolve staff performance problems, but also maintain satisfactory performance over time. - Most OBM investigations to date have demonstrated only short-term effectiveness in that relatively few investigations have included follow-up observations of staff performance for more than a few months following intervention. - However, the durability of OBM procedures nevertheless remains a concern because long-term maintenance of staff performance may prove more difficult than initially affecting performance change given the many obstacles to maintenance in human service organizations such as staff turnover, reorganization and frequent budgetary alterations. - Related to the need for research on the durability of OBM applications is the need to evaluate applications within more comprehensive aspects of the overall operations of human service agencies. - The vast majority of OBM applications have generally been restricted to relatively small-scale demonstration projects, addressing only a small portion of an agency's service provision. - In order to more significantly impact human services, investigations are needed to demonstrate how OBM approaches can be effectively applied in a more comprehensive fashion across large domains of respective agencies' service responsibilities. - One variable that seems especially relevant for determining how to expand the scope of OBM procedures within human service organizations is the development of a technology for training and managing supervisor performance. - Supervisors cannot be expected to apply OBM effectively unless they are knowledgeable about OBM principles and skilled in OBM practices. - There are indications of increased research interest in interventions for training supervisors to utilize OBM procedures in the training and management of their staff. - It seems probable that many of the same strategies demonstrated to be effective with nonsupervisory personnel will also be effective when applied to important areas of supervisory performance. - The exact extent to which variations in existing OBM procedures are warranted can only be determined through increased research attention on supervisory performance. - Another, and related, means of expanding the use of OBM procedures in the human services is to expose more management trainees to the OBM field. ### Adoption of Organizational Behavior Management as the “Management Approach of Choice” in Human Services - Despite a considerable amount of research demonstrating that an OBM approach to supervision is quite effective when applied to specific areas of staff performance, as noted earlier OBM is not widely practiced in human services. - This lack of adoption by management personnel has led to calls for research to identify variables, in addition to effectiveness, that may influence the practice of OBM in human service organizations. - In particular, there have been numerous calls to evaluate variables affecting consumer satisfaction with OBM procedures. - Consumer satisfaction generally refers to the extent to which supervisors and staff view a management practice as desirable in that the procedure appears fair, practical, and unlikely to have negative effects on agency personnel. - One variable likely to influence the acceptability of management procedures is efficiency - that is, the time and resources required of managers to implement the procedures. - As more researchers include efficiency data, a better determination can be made regarding the most efficient management strategy required to gain satisfactory results. - Another variable related to the acceptability of OBM procedures is how the procedures are introduced within human service agencies. - The technology can be applied within essentially any type of human service agency, but applications are likely to be better received, and therefore adopted, if applied in a manner commensurate with the idiosyncratic concerns, needs, and terminology of individual human service agencies. - It would appear more advantageous, at least initially, to determine what an agency's consumers, staff, and management view as most important.