Behavior Modification
There is a now-classic study that took place a number of years ago with freight packers at Emery Air Freight (now part of Federal Express). Emery’s management wanted packers to use freight containers for shipments whenever possible because of specific economic savings. When packers were queried as to the percentage of shipments containerized, the standard reply was ninety percent. An analysis by Emery found, however, that the container utilization rate was only forty-five percent. In order to encourage employees to use containers, management established a program of feedback and positive reinforcements. Each packer was instructed to keep a checklist of his or her daily pickings, both containerized and no containerized. At the end of each day, the packer computed his or her container utilization rate. Almost unbelievably, container utilization jumped to more than ninety percent on the first day of the program and held to that level. Emery reported that this simple program of feedback and positive reinforcements saved the company $2 million over a three-year period.
This program at Emery Air Freight illustrates the use of behavior modification, or what has become more popularly called OB Mod. It represents the application of reinforcement theory to individuals in the work setting.
What is OB Mod?
The typical OB Mod program, as shown in Figure 8-2, follows a five-step problem-solving model: (1) identification of performance-related behaviors; (2) measurement of the behaviors; (3) identification of behavioral contingencies; (4) development and implementation of an intervention strategy; and (5) evaluation of performance improvement.
Everything an employee does on his or her job is not equally important in terms of performance outcomes. The first step in OB Mod, therefore, is to identify the critical behaviors that make a significant impact on the employee’s job performance. These are those five to ten percent of behaviors that may account for up to seventy or eighty percent of each employee’s performance. Using containers whenever possible by freight packers at Emery Air Freight is example of a critical behavior.
The second step requires the manager to develop some baseline performance data. This is obtained by determining the number of times the identified behavior is occurring under present conditions. In our freight packing example at Emery, this would have revealed that forty-five percent of all shipments were containerized.
The third step is to perform a functional analysis to identify the behavioral contingencies or consequences of performance. This tells the manager the antecedent cues that emit the behavior ant the consequences that are currently maintaining it. At Emery Air Freight, social norms and the greater difficulty in packing containers were the antecedent cues. This encouraged the practice of packing items separately. Moreover, the consequences for continuing this behavior, prior to the OB Mod intervention, were social acceptance and escaping more demanding work.