Specific Organizational Application - Learning and Ability

1. Using lotteries to reduce absenteeism

For example, Continental Airlines has created a lottery that rewards its 40,000 employees for attendance. Twice a year, Continental holds a raffle and gives away eight new sport utility vehicles. Only employees who have not missed a day of work during the previous six months are eligible. This lottery system thus, follows a variable-ratio schedule where management credits the lottery with significantly reducing the company‟s absence rate (Robbins, 2003).

2. Well pay vs. sick pay

Organizations with paid sick leave programs experience almost twice the absenteeism of organizations without such programs. One of the Midwest organizations in USA implemented a well-pay program. It paid a bonus to employees who had no absence for any given four-week period and then paid for sick leave only after the first eight hours of absence. The well-pay program produced increased savings to the organization, reduced absenteeism, increased productivity, and improved employee satisfaction. Forbes magazine used the same approach to cut its health care costs. It rewarded employees who stayed healthy and did not file medical claims by paying them the difference between $500 and their medical claims, then doubling the amount. By doing this, Forbes cut its major medical and dental claims by over 30 percent (Robbins, 2003).

3. Employee discipline

a) Every manager will, at some time, have to deal with problem behaviors in his/her organization.

b) Managers will respond with disciplinary actions such as oral reprimands, written warnings, and temporary suspensions. However, the use of discipline carries costs. It may provide only a short-term solution and result in serious side effects.

c) Disciplining employees for undesirable behaviors gives them a message to what not to do. However, it does not tell them what alternative behaviors are preferred.

d) Discipline does have a place in organizations.

e) In practice, it tends to be widely used because of its ability to produce fast results in the short run.

f) Developing training programs

g) Most organizations have some kind of systematic training program

h) In one recent year, U.S. corporations with 100 or more employees spent in excess of $58 billion on formal training for 47.3 million workers (Robbins, 2003).

4. Social-learning theory suggests that training should

a) Offer a model to grab the trainee‟s attention.

b) Provide motivational properties

c) Help the trainee to file away what he or she has learned for later use and provide opportunities to practice new behaviors.

d) Offer positive rewards for accomplishments.

e) If the training has taken place off the job, allow the trainee some opportunity to transfer what he/she learned to the job.

5. Self-management

1. Organizational applications of learning concepts can also be used to allow individuals to manage their own behavior.

2. Self-management requires an individual to deliberately manipulate stimuli, internal processes, and responses to achieve personal behavioral outcomes.

The basic processes involve observing one‟s own behavior, comparing the behavior with a standard, and rewarding oneself if the behavior meets the standard.