Association for Behavior Analysis International

Since its inception in the late 1960s Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) has been applied across a wide variety of industries. Within these various industries different goals, populations, and procedures make OBM one of the broadest applications of behavior analysis. However, the differences across settings require a range of skills in an OBM practitioner that include industry specific terminology, knowledge of safety procedures, government regulations, among others. This symposium contains two presentations in a human service setting, a study that took place within a hospital, and a final study that took place in a manufacturing plant. The goals and methods of the studies vary widely and highlight how OBM procedures can be implemented. The applications of OBM will be compared and contrasted by the discussant.

Behavior analysts

Signs are a commonly used antecedent intervention. There are a number of variables that make a sign more likely to be followed (proximity, response effort, changing vs. static), but there is little research into whether a sign is more effective if the message is provided in a “do” versus a “don’t” format. Providing a “do” request is generally considered more effective in clinical populations but has not been studied in an employee population. In the current study, written requests, in the form of a posted sign on a door, were used to measure the effectiveness of a “do” message (find another way) and a “don’t” message (do not enter) with employees in a school setting. Adherence to the signs did some to be influenced by the message.

Pay-for-performance broadly describes systems where an employee’s behavior is tied to her or his performance. The current applied study describes the effects of transitioning a team of four behavior analysts from a standard pay-for-time paradigm to a pay-for-performance system. In the pay-for-performance system a percentage of pay was made contingent upon the number of hours billed. Results indicated an increase in the number of monthly hours billed across all behavior analysts. Additionally, the improvements in performance achieved in the pay-for-performance program made the department profitable for the first time.

Hospital errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States. One way to reduce errors is to increase communication between doctors, nurses, and patients. Each stakeholder brings valuable information to the discussion and can serve as a second check during medical decisions. In this study, we examined a package intervention that included task clarification, prompting, and feedback for increasing discussion among doctors, nurses, and patients during morning rounds on two units. Communication was measured using a checklist of items to be discussed during rounds. Furthermore, nurse presence and submitting orders during rounds was measured. Results indicated that they intervention was successful at improving communication.

Organizational behavior management (OBM) techniques have long made positive impacts in businesses and organizations. One successful area within OBM is performance management or focusing on employee behaviors to reach organizational goals. The current study used performance management techniques to improve casting productivity and efficiency in a copper manufacturing company. Combinations of goal-setting, task clarification, and feedback were used to target both pounds of copper casted and the amount of time needed to complete a cycle (cycle time). Overall, productivity increased by 7.2% and cycle time decreased by 4.4% during the intervention and this change was estimated to be worth over $5 million. Methodology and other results will be discussed.