Employee Absenteeism
Mr. Smith has contacted you for assistance with a problem
that he is having at his workplace. Mr. Smith owns a small factory that
manufactures custom figure skates. He has 30 employees who work for him. During
the past year, he has noticed a very high absenteeism rate among his staff. The
high rate of absenteeism has negatively affected the company’s productivity and
ability to meet deadlines. Since the company is small and the work is highly
specialized, it is difficult to obtain substitute or temporary workers.
Mr. Smith hoped that offering donuts and coffee in the
mornings would help his employees feel appreciated and want to come to work,
but this strategy yielded very poor results. He also explained to his staff
that the low productivity could result in the factory being permanently closed.
However, following this, he noticed an increase in absenteeism rates.
Mr. Smith is now turning to you for help with his staff.
1. Briefly recap the case, discussing your observations and
clearly identifying a research question.
2. What are the target behaviors and why is it important to
address this behavior?
3. Why might have Mr. Smith’s previous interventions not
been successful?
4. What intervention do you think will result in a specific
level and direction of desired change in the target behavior?
5. Choose an effective modification program to test your
hypothesis for your hypothetical experiment (e.g. a token economy, lottery, or
positive reinforcement) and discuss how you would implement your program and
the rationale for your choice, based upon current scientific literature.
6. Make explicit how the proposed behavior plan will be
monitored and outcomes analyzed, drawing clear conclusions.
7. Clearly communicate the anticipated results, addressing
any potential issues of response maintenance, response transfer and/or
extinction.
8. What are the value/risks/strategies in using the same
person as their own experimental control?
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