Further Evaluation of the Performance Diagnostic Checklist-Safety (PDC-Safety)

ABSTRACT

We further evaluated the Performance Diagnostic Checklist- Safety (PDC-Safety) by comparing the effectiveness of a PDC-Safety indicated intervention with a PDC-Safety non-indicated intervention for three employees at a clinic serving children with intellectual disabilities. The interventions targeted participants’ hand washing before working with clients. The results of the PDC-Safety suggested that the antecedents and information domain was most problematic. First, a non-indicated intervention, which included access to additional materials (i.e., hand sanitizer), was implemented and found to be ineffective. Next, an indicated intervention, which included prompting, was found to be effective to increase safe performance to acceptable levels for two of the three participants; one participant required feedback to substantially improve and maintain safe performance.     

Keeping an Uphill Edge

Abstract

Several behaviors in a ski shop were identified as being deficient using Austin's Performance Diagnostic Checklist (2000) and Daniels and Daniels' PIC/NIC Analysis (2004). During a 4-week baseline, 7 cleaning behaviors were monitored and 5 were subsequently targeted in an intervention package using an ABC design. The intervention included: a task clarification session, a posted behavioral checklist, graphic feedback of the group's performance for the previous week, and daily task-specific feedback. Immediately after the checklist was posted, the frequency of employee cleaning behaviors increased 52%. Cleaning behaviors increased an additional 12% after the implementation of daily task-specific feedback. Results suggest the interventions generalized to the 2 cleaning behaviors not mentioned in the task-clarification session.     

The Use of the Performance Diagnostic Checklist to Guide Intervention Selection in an Independently Owned Coffee Shop

Abstract

The utility of the Performance Diagnostic Checklist (PDC) (Austin, 2000) as an assessment tool to design an intervention for increasing maintenance tasks in an independently owned coffee shop was examined. The PDC, which was administered to four employees, identified a lack of appropriate antecedents and consequences as areas in need of intervention. Based on the results of the PDC, task clarification and a lottery were implemented in a multiple baseline across tasks design to increase employees' completion of maintenance tasks. The results for task group 1 yielded baseline and intervention means of 44% and 86%, respectively. The results for task group 2 yielded baseline and intervention means of 32% and 67%, respectively. A social validity measure indicated that employees thought that the appearance of the shop had improved, believed the changes helped to improve customer satisfaction, and claimed that the new procedures made their job easier. Overall, results suggest that the PDC can be an effective assessment tool for identifying and subsequently targeting specific areas of improvement within an organization.     

The Use of Video Modeling,Prompting, and Feedback to Increase Credit Card Promotion in a Retail Setting

We evaluated the use of video modeling, role play, prompting, and feedback to increase credit card promotion by sales associates in a retail setting. We first used the Performance Diagnostic Checklist (Austin, 2000 Austin, J. 2000. “Performance analysis and performance diagnostics”. In Handbook of applied behavior analysis, Edited by: Austin, J. and Carr, J. E. 321–349. Reno, NV: Context Press.  [Google Scholar]) to identify the variables contributing to the poor performance of two sales associates. Based on the results, we developed an intervention package that included a video model, instructional prompt cards, role play, and feedback. During baseline, target employees asked a mean of 26% of customers to enroll in the credit card program. Following intervention, target employees asked a mean of 84% of customers to enroll in the credit card program. Furthermore, employees rated the intervention as enjoyable, as effective, and as a system that they would continue to use. The results illustrate the effectiveness of video modeling, prompting, and feedback in increasing credit card promotions and delivering critical information about the card to daily customers.     

A Preliminary Assessment of the Validity and Reliability of the Performance Diagnostic Checklist-Human Services

ABSTRACT

The Performance Diagnostic Checklist-Human Services (PDC-HS) is an informant-based tool used to identify the environmental variables contributing to employee performance problems in human service settings. Although previous research has suggested that the tool is useful to identify an intervention which can be used to improve performance, no studies have formally examined the validity and reliability of the tool. In this study, we used video vignettes to assess the validity and reliability of the PDC-HS. We created three videos; each described a performance problem in one or more of the four PDC-HS domains. Twenty-one participants then watched the videos and evaluated the performance problem depicted using the PDC-HS. We measured the validity of the tool by calculating the percentage of participants who correctly identified the PDC-HS domain responsible for the performance problem. Two to four weeks later, we had participants re-watch the videos and complete the PDC-HS to obtain a measure of test re-test reliability. We also compared PDC-HS item responses across participants to evaluate inter-rater reliability. Results show that all participants correctly identified the problematic PDC-HS domain(s) in each video. PDC-HS validity values were above 93% across all three videos and domains; mean test re-test and interrater reliability values were above 95%. The results are discussed in terms of the preliminary nature of this analysis; although these data are limited by the amount and clarity of the information provided in the videos, this study represents a necessary first step in the assessment of the reliability and validity of the PDC-HS tool.     

Increasing Physical Therapy Equipment Preparation Using Task Clarification,Feedback and Environmental Manipulations

The purpose of this study was to increase completion of tasks related to morning preparation procedures among 2 full-time and 4 part-time employees at a physical therapy clinic. A functional assessment was conducted to aid in the development of the treatment package consisting of graphic feedback, task clarification, and equipment manipulations. Later, graphic feedback was replaced with verbal feedback from the manager to facilitate maintenance of the intervention by the manager. During baseline, the mean checklist completion percentage was 18.4% and 56.5% for the therapy area and the hygienic activity area, respectively. This improved to 82.1% and 90.3% during the first intervention phase and remained above baseline levels at 75.6% and 100% during the second intervention phase. The results of this study suggest that the package intervention derived from the assessment was effective at increasing preparation task completion. Performance maintained above baseline levels at a three-month follow-up observation for the therapy area (50%) and the hygienic activity area (83.3%). According to the treatment acceptability assessment, graphic and verbal feedback were viewed as favorable by employees.     

Operational Productivity,Corporate Social Performance,Financial Performance,and Risk in Manufacturing Firms

We examine the relationship between Operational Productivity (OP), Corporate Social Performance (CSP), Financial Performance (FP), and risk. Our sample frame comprises 476 firms in nine US manufacturing industries during the period 1999–2009. We employ DEA‐based measures for OP and CSP, two operationalizations for FP to reflect current profitability and market value, and two operationalizations for risk to reflect bankruptcy risk and stock price volatility. We confirm that OP is essential for good financial performance and reduced risk (as expected), but the main effects of CSP are mixed. Importantly, we find that OP moderates the CSP–FP and CSP–risk relationships. Specifically, if OP is poor, CSP is of limited benefit to FP or risk. However, at or above a threshold level of OP, firms can use CSP to build upon it to yield further improvements in FP and reductions in risk. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory and practice.     

Risk, Trust, and Safety Culture in U.K. Train Operating Companies

Organizational safety culture reflects the attitudes and behaviors that individuals share in considering and reacting to hazards and risks. We first argue that trust is an underdeveloped and important concept in relation to theories of safety culture and high-reliability organizations. The article then reports findings from a two-year qualitative study of train operating companies (TOCs) in the United Kingdom, which sought to explore in detail the linkages between safety culture and the postprivatized railway industry. In-depth interviews and focus groups were carried out with a sample of over 500 employees, from four organizations, and representing all key functional levels. Our analysis suggests that the 1993 privatization, and subsequent organizational restructuring of the U.K. railway industry, has had important repercussions for both safety culture and trust relationships. We explore our findings in relation to three key constructs within "safe organizations" theories (namely, flexibility, commitment, and learning), and discuss how the safe organization model might be usefully supplemented by a consideration of trust issues.     

Improving the Quality of Hotel Banquet Staff Performance

The banquet staff at a north Texas hotel were responsible for setting up 11 different functions for conferences and meetings. The functions were often set up late and items were often omitted. An analysis suggested that performance problems were Ihe result of weak antecedents, inefficient work procedures, inadequate training, and weak performance contingencies. A treatment package consisting of task checklists, feedback, goal setting, monetary bonuses for quality performance, training and job aids was designed to enhance the accuracy and timeliness of function setups. Performance increased from an average of 68.8% on a quality measure (accuracy plus timeliness of setups) in baseline to 99.7% during the treatment phase. Performance decreased to 82.3% during a second baseline phase in which the intervention was discontinued by hotel management. Performance increased to 99.3% with the reintroduction of the treatment package. Customer satisfaction ratings of banquet setups and service were high during the interventions. Treatment effects are discussed with respect to rule-governed behavior.     

Using Task Clarification and Feedback Training to Improve Staff Performance in an East African Nongovernmental Organization

The present study used a multiple-baseline design to illustrate the effectiveness of an intervention package consisting of a multipurpose job aid and feedback training in improving the performance of supervisors and animal trainers in a nongovernmental organization headquartered in East Africa. Prior to the intervention, the performance of three supervisors and three animal trainers was suboptimal. Performance improved when supervisors were taught to use the job aid and provide feedback, and reached a high and consistent level during a subsequent phase, in which supervisors used the job aid independently. Limited maintenance and generalization data suggest that the intervention package produced lasting and generalized effects, and social validity data suggest that supervisors viewed the intervention as acceptable. These findings appear to be the first experimentally controlled demonstration of the potential value of organizational behavior management in improving performance in nongovernmental organizations working in resource-poor areas.     

The Use and Validation of Preintervention Diagnostic Tools in Organizational Behavior Management

Functional analyses and assessments have become the accepted gold standards in many applied areas of behavior analysis, including Organizational Behavior Management (OBM), in recent years. Despite their acceptance, OBM data on such tools have been largely absent. There are several assessment alternatives in OBM (e.g., ABC, PIC/NIC, Behavior Engineering Model), but two assessment approaches most common in the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management are Behavioral Systems Analysis (BSA) and the Performance Diagnostic Checklist (PDC). To date there have been no comprehensive reviews of BSA or the PDC from which one might draw ideas for application, research, and the advancement of the field. The goals of this paper are to (a) provide a review of the BSA and PDC literature within the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM), (b) discuss the implications of the results of the review, and (c) provide suggestions for future research utilizing BSA and the PDC.     

Conflict management, Part 1. Conflict management checklist: a diagnostic tool for assessing conflict in organizations

Complex interpersonal conflicts are inevitable in the high speed, high stakes, pressured work of health care. Poorly managed, conflict saps productivity, erodes trust, and spawns additional disputes. Well managed, conflict can enhance the self-confidence and self-esteem of the parties, build relationships, and engender creative solutions beyond expectations. Just as thoughtful differential diagnosis precedes optimum treatment in the doctor-patient relationship, management of conflict is greatly enhanced when preceded by careful assessment. In the first of two articles, the authors present a diagnostic approach, the Conflict Management Checklist, to increase self-awareness and decrease anxiety around conflict.     

The Effects of a Goal Setting Intervention on Productivity and Persistence in an Analogue Work Task

The authors of this study sought to quantify the beneficial effect of goal setting on work performance, and to characterize the persistence or deterioration of goal-directed behavior over time. Twenty-six participants completed a computer-based data entry task. Performance was measured during an initial baseline, a goal setting intervention that consisted of either a high, unattainable goal (high goal condition) or a low, attainable goal (low goal condition), followed by a return to baseline, and a second goal setting intervention (the alternate goal to the first goal). In the fifth condition, each participant was given the choice to work in either the high or low goal condition. Greater performance increases were reliably observed during the high goal condition than during the low goal condition, but patterns of persistence or deterioration varied across participants. The implications of the findings for the development and understanding of goal setting interventions in the workplace are explored.     

Behavior Management in the Public Accommodations Industry

A combined performance feedback and token economy intervention was used in three programs to markedly improve the cleaning activities of various housekeeping personnel in a large, urban hotel. In the prototype project, the housekeeping functions of mom attendants were categorized in terms of a 70-point checklist of specific, behaviorally defined, objectives. The full List was divided into three sublists corresponding to separate parts of a room. A combined intrasubject-replications design with changing criterion, multiple-baseline, withdrawal, and transfer-test components was utilized. According to this procedure, the intervention was introduced sequentially across the three sublists in a temporally staggered manner. At each stage, the requirements of the next sublist were simply accumulated with extant requirements and token-economy criterion levels were adjusted accordingly. Periods of program withdrawal were introduced during each stage as well as transfer tests involving rooms cleaned by attendants but not subsumed by the program. Finally, a maintenance phase was introduced. Results indicated that performance change on each sublist for all subjects was highly correlated with the application of the intervention and was maintained thereafter. Performance declined during withdrawal periods, and offer improved progressively for each sublist throughout the program. Two subsequent projects illustrated the applicability of this program to hotel housemen and bellmen.     

The Impact of a Task Clarification and Feedback Intervention on Restaurant Service Quality

Customer service is a key aspect of restaurant success, as performance has shown a reliable positive relationship with customer retention. However, waitstaff performance may deteriorate, as income from gratuities is often unrelated to service quality. The present study investigated the effectiveness of an intervention consisting of task clarification and task-specific feedback on restaurant service tasks and observed the relationship between task completion and gratuities. Three adult women servers participated during their regular working shifts at a local dine-in restaurant. Initially customer service task completion was low (36% on average across participants). Performance increased immediately following the introduction of the intervention, and all participants maintained 87.5%–100% task completion. Correlational analyses found that gratuities were unrelated to performance and may thus pose a problem for performance maintenance. Implications relating to feedback and payment schedules are discussed.     

Combining Quantitative Risk Assessment of Human Health,Food Waste,and Energy Consumption: The Next Step in the Development of the Food Cold Chain?

The preservation of perishable food via refrigeration in the supply chain is essential to extend shelf life and provide consumers with safe food. However, electricity consumed in refrigeration processes has an economical and an environmental impact. This study focuses on the cold chain of cooked ham, including transport, cold room in supermarket, display cabinet, transport by consumer, and domestic refrigerator, and aims to predict the risk for human health associated with Listeria monocytogenes, the amount of food wasted due to the growth of spoilage bacteria, and the electrical consumption to maintain product temperature through the cold chain. A set of eight intervention actions were tested to evaluate their impact on the three criteria. Results show that the modification of the thermostat of the domestic refrigerator has a high impact on food safety and food waste and a limited impact on the electrical consumption. Inversely, the modification of the airflow rate in the display cabinet has a high impact on electrical consumption and a limited impact on food safety and food waste. A cost–benefit analysis approach and two multicriteria decision analysis methods were used to rank the intervention actions. These three methodologies show that setting the thermostat of the domestic refrigerator to 4 °C presents the best compromise between the three criteria. The impact of decisionmaker preferences (criteria weight) and limitations of these three approaches are discussed. The approaches proposed by this study may be useful in decision making to evaluate global impact of intervention actions in issues involving conflicting outputs.     

Using Public Feedback and Competitive Rewards to Increase the Safe Driving of Pizza Deliverers

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of a safe driving competition facilitated by publicly-posted individual feedback. The turn-signal use, safety-belt use, and complete intersection stopping of 82 pizza deliverers were observed at two experimental and three control stores, as well as among the civilian population. After baseline observations, pizza deliverers received posted weekly individual feedback on their turn-signal use (at Store A) or complete intersection stops (at Store B). The deliverers' safe driving scores were posted individually on a vertical scale along with their names. Each week the deliverer with the highest average performance was rewarded with a free vehicle-maintenance coupon. Turn-signal use among drivers at Store A (n= 24) increased 22 percentage points from baseline to the intervention phase which was maintained into the withdrawal phase. Complete intersection stopping among drivers at Store B (n= 21) increased 17 percentage points from baseline to the intervention phase and was maintained into the withdrawal phase. Although the winners of the weekly competitions had the greatest increase in performance, non-winners also increased their instances of safe driving during the competition.     

Equity, equity, that's our cry. Interview by Richard L. Reece.

On February 11, 1999, Richard L. Reece, MD, interviewed J.D. Kleinke to talk about his new book entitled Bleeding Edge: The Business of Health Care in the New Century. A medical economist and author living in Denver, Kleinke advocates a true partnership between hospitals and physicians--a marriage with both parties contributing equally to the relationship. He believes that "physicians and people who are running the administrative infrastructures of hospitals and other facilities need to recognize that they are equal partners in a death struggle against the insurers for ultimate control of the premium and the consumer." Though physicians are sure to balk at the suggestion that they become "captive" to the hospital, Kleinke explains that, "captivity is a necessary condition before they can work functionally together and take on managed care and contract directly with consumers, employers, and the government." Kleinke discusses five trends that he explores in his book: risk assumption, consumerism, consolidation, integration, and industralization.     

The Effects of Self-Monitoring on Safe Posture Performance

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of self-monitoring on safe positioning of individuals performing a typing task and an assembly task using a multiple baseline design across behaviors and tasks. The study took place in an analogue office setting with seven college student participants. The dependent variable was the percentage of observations scored as safe, and each session was recorded via a hidden camera. Each block of sessions included completing a typing task for two 9-minute sessions and an assembly task for two 9-minute sessions. During baseline, participants received information regarding safe positions and demonstrated the positions. In the self-monitoring phase, participants recorded whether a targeted posture was safe or at-risk. If constraints of the study permitted it, a third phase was implemented. In the third phase, if the targeted postures improved at least 20 percentage points over baseline during self-monitoring, additional behaviors were monitored. Otherwise, an overt camera condition was implemented during the third phase in addition to self-monitoring. Five of the 17 dependent variables exposed to the self-monitoring intervention resulted in substantial changes in safety performance, and an additional six behaviors resulted in a mean improvement of more than 10% from baseline to intervention. The camera present condition produced differential improvement for two of the 12 exposed postures. This information could lead to a viable alternative for improving occupational safety.     

Considerations in Feedback Delivery: The Role of Accuracy and Type of Evaluation

Performance feedback remains a commonly implemented and successful intervention within organizational behavior management, but a comprehensive understanding of the components that influence the effectiveness of feedback tends to be lacking. The present study sought to contribute by analyzing the variables of accuracy (contingent on or independent of performance) and evaluation type (supportive or critical judgments) on performance using a simulated work environment. A total of 75 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 experimental conditions: (a) contingent and supportive feedback, (b) contingent and critical feedback, (c) independent and supportive feedback, or (d) independent and critical feedback. Outcomes suggested that contingent feedback improved performance relative to independent feedback, however, no differences were found between supportive and critical types of feedback. The need for additional research into the functional and formal elements of effective feedback is also discussed.