Your team owns an organizational development consulting firm,and has done well based upon referrals. However, recently thegrowth of your business has leveled off dramatically, and you are abit concerned that if you do nothing, you might even lose moneynext month.

To your dismay, you have discovered that several members of yourcompany have adopted poor work habits. For each individual,determine:

The type of operant conditioning that would be most beneficial(see below)

Describe specifically how you would use that method

Determine if the reinforcement schedule should be continuous orsome kind of interval.

OPERANT CONDITIONING Positive reinforcement – giving something pleasurable to retainor increase behavior Negative reinforcement (Avoidance) – not the same as punishment-- increases the probability that a desired behavior will occur byremoving a negative consequence when a person performs the desiredbehavior. Example: Parents stop complaining about child’s timemanagement if the child starts doing better in school. Extinction - Removing a consequence that is currentlyreinforcing an undesirable behavior in an effort to decrease theprobability that the behavior will occur again in the future.Example: When John arrives late to work, Betty starts the meetingon his behalf. Betty stops doing this so John will arrive ontime. Punishment – Administering an undesirable consequence, butremember to punish the behavior, not the person

Employee	Behavior	Operant Conditioning	Specific Intervention(s)	Reinforcement Schedule
Phil Salesman	Very charismatic and attractive; unfortunately, this means he isoften looking for adventure rather than selling consultingservices. Three times in the past 3 years he has disappeared from theoffice without requesting vacation time and has been absent forweeks at a time. He has also wrecked his company car each time. His sales activity has decreased by 25% in the past 3 years.

Employee	Behavior	Operant Conditioning	Specific Intervention(s)	Reinforcement Schedule
Stu Account Executive	Conservative, but tends to be a follower, rather than a leader.He also has a severe drinking problem and blacks out. Since he is an account executive, Stu’s appearance is important.One Monday morning he returned to work with his front teethmissing. Another time he returned to work with a breast enhancementwithout any memory of how that happened. Stu is having a hard time setting up meetings for newbusiness.

Employee	Behavior	Operant Conditioning	Specific Intervention(s)	Reinforcement Schedule
Alan Executive Assistant	Alan is downright immature and strange. He is 42 years old andstill lives at home with his parents. Alan doesn’t recognize“personal space” and sometimes gets too close to people and staresat them. Alan also dresses unprofessionally and wears a full beard,which does not convey the right image for the consultingcompany. Alan desperately tries to be close friends with Phil and wantsto be a salesman just like Phil when he grows up. Alan has shown up at work under the influence of drugs andeveryone in the office agrees it is time for rehab.

Employee	Behavior	Operant Conditioning	Specific Intervention(s)	Reinforcement Schedule
Doug Human Resources Manager	Doug is recently married and a good employee. He does a good jobmanaging the company finances. Unfortunately for Doug, Alan is his new brother in law, so he iscaught between wanting to terminate Alan, which is good for thecompany … and helping Alan, which is what his wife wants him todo. You sense that Doug has not been completely honest about a lotof the problems in the office.

Employee	Behavior	Operant Conditioning	Specific Intervention(s)	Reinforcement Schedule
Mr. Chow Mailroom	Leslie Chow is a very disruptive employee. It seems the moredysfunctional the office becomes, the more Mr. Chow laughs. Sometimes Mr. Chow runs through the office screaming “I lovecocaine”. He has even jumped off desks singing “I believe I canfly”. Mr. Chow just returned from Bangkok with $22 million dollars ingold bars. There have been a lot of strange people watching theoffice building and employees now feel unsafe when walking to theircars. Mail isn’t getting delivered in a timely basis, or at all.Several customers have been called about nonpayment; they havestated that their checks were mailed weeks ago.