Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) Network

The Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) Network exists to support the growth and vitality of Organizational Behavior Management. This site contains articles and information on the science of applying behavior analysis to business to improve organizational performance and safety.

science of applying behavior analysis to business to improve organizational performance and safety.

What is Organizational Behavior Management (OBM)?

• Organizational Behavior Management practices help organizations to get the results they want.
• Organizational Behavior Management practices produce significant and measurable outcomes.
• Organizational Behavior Management comprises a research base of methods and applications with proven effectivenesss in the areas of work motivation, supervisory effectiveness, leadership and executive coaching, injury reduction, quality improvement, change management, incentive and reward systems, reinforcement and feedback systems, performance management, and behavior-based safety.
• Organizational Behavior Management has demonstrated performance improvements of more than 100% and savings of millions of dollars in many industries, including: Chemical and petro-chemical, financial, human services, manufacturing, paper, transportation, utilities, and many others!
• Organizational Behavior Management is the only scientific approach to improving performance by applying the concepts and principles of applied behavior analysis. Behavior analysis is the psychology aimed at how environmental variables affect behavior. Applying the science of behavior analysis is the only sure way to fully understand behavior at both the organizational and individual levels.

What is Organizational Behavior Management?

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Some of our featured free articles:

A Systems Critique of Gilbert’s PIP’s
In Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance, Gilbert describes a seven step ‘performance audit’. Accomplishments and requirements are identified and then exemplar and typical performances are determined. An index of Potential for Improvement Performance (PIP) is computed and then the value or ‘stakes’ of the improvement potential is assessed. Gilbert summarizes this process by stating, “Remember, our only reason for measuring is to discover our opportunities for performance engineering.”

O Efeito do Observador
Na primeira edição de Values-based Safety Process, o autor Terry Mcsween escreveu
"ninguém conduziu até agora uma pesquisa definitiva sobre os efeitos de empregados conduzindo observações nos seus próprios locais de trabalho" (p. 24). Nós achamos essa afirmação interessante e merecedora de uma investigação mais detalhada. Ao discutir esta questão com outros pesquisadores e praticantes da área, decidimos que existia interesse geral suficiente para que pesquisas adicionais sobre o processo de observação fossem realizadas. Muitos praticantes que foram questionados achavam que era evidente que empregados que conduziam observações a respeito da segurança de seus colegas trabalhavam de maneira mais segura como resultado de tais observações. No entanto, essa afirmação não havia sido cientificamente comprovada. Feedback e processos de observação são componentes críticos do gerenciamento de segurança comportamental (behavior-based safety, BBS), mas, curiosamente, existem vários estudos sobre os efeitos de feedback, enquanto estudos sobre os efeito da observação são quase inexistentes. Estes fatores fizeram nossa tarefa mais interessante e mais desafiadora. Então com essas consideração, começamos nossa busca para determinar se empregados que conduzem observações de segurança de fato trabalham de forma mais segura como resultado dessas observações. Nós nomeamos esse efeito hipotético de "efeito do observador".

The Sacred and the Secular in OBM
The purpose of this article is to comment briefly on some observations and trends we have noted within the OBM movement as a way to offer a preview of a paper we will present at the upcoming ABA conference in May. Various aspects of the project we will present are at least loosely related to the observations and trends we identify herein. From our perspective, one clear trend is that OBM appears to be undergoing a period of “secularism” wherein some of its more “sacred” interventions are being questioned. Numbered among these “sacred” traditions are the regular use by OBM practitioners of feedback (Alvero, Bucklin, & Austin, 2001; Balcazar, Hopkins, & Suarez, 1986; Kluger & DiNisi, 1996), goal setting (Fellner & Sulzer-Azaroff, 1984), and social reinforcement (O’Hara, Johnson, & Beehr, 1985). Of these, feedback arguably is the most foundational in that it typically has served as the first treatment upon which other OBM interventions are superimposed (following a components-analysis-like method).

Costly Thy Habit as Thy Purse Can Buy, But Not Expressed in Fancy; Rich, Not Gaudy: Total Quality Management in Applied Psychology: A Review of Mary Walton’s The Deming Management Method
Managed care is a term used for the diverse cost-containment strategies and financial arrangements presently prevailing over this country’s transforming health care system (Benedict & Phelps, 1998). The quickest to rise in the managed health care system are fully captivated healthcare maintenance organizations (HMOs). Gone are the days of fee-for-service and unbridled spending with all the trimmings. Psychologists and practitioners alike are now being held accountable for delivering services in cost-effective ways to prepaid subscribers (Miller & Farber, 1996). Despite opposing opinions (Blanck & DeLeon, 1996), managed care has arrived, and along with it a set of contingencies placing a premium on proficiency. We are reminded at once that survival in human services rests on lowering costs and improving our practices, while maintaining satisfaction from individual consumers and businesses (Hayes & Heiby, 1996). The professional practices of psychologists must evolve in keeping with the times. We have to if we are ever to mount this exigency we are now facing. To thwart falling into the trough of melancholy or despair, psychologists in applied settings should consider adopting management strategies already proven effective by businesses other than human services. One such method with an excellent track record (Deming, 1982, 1986) is that of total quality management (TQM) theory, employing the methods of statistical process control (SPC). Rising to the forefront of this system is an American mathematical physicist by the name of W. Edwards Deming. Deming is responsible for rectifying struggling Japanese industries post-World War II, making Japan an economic superpower with a reputation for producing goods of superior quality (Sanders & Sanders, 1994). Since then, he has influenced American industries facing similar difficulties as well, such as the Ford Motor Company, and Xerox (Gabor, 1990).

On Attempting to Reconcile Performance Management and Systems Analysis
Organizational behavior management, as a specific movement within the behavioral tradition, has been with us for several decades. This is not a particularly long career for a discipline. Nonetheless, it seems to me that our descriptions of the things and events of our domain are not particularly precise. An especially salient example of imprecision is apparent in our neglecting to differentiate effectively among the major sub-divisions of our field, namely, performance management and systems analysis. We have tended, instead, to collect these two enterprises into one broad class of events – organizational behavior management -- as though the differences between them were of no consequence. The differences between them far outweigh their commonalties, though, and one consequence of failing to articulate them may be that our understanding of our subject matter is not accumulating as rapidly as might have been possible were we to have invested in greater precision.

OS EFEITOS DA FREQÜÊNCIA DE FEEDBACK NO TRABALHO
O feedback, sozinho ou combinado com outros procedimentos, é uma das intervenções mais usadas para melhorar os desempenhos em organizações. Em uma revisão dos estudos publicados no Journal of Organizational Behavior Management entre 1977 e 1986, a primeira década de publicação do JOBM, Balcazazr, Shupert, Daniels, Mawhinney e Hopkins (1989) relataram que aproximadamente 65% dos artigos usaram feedback como variável independente ou como um componente da variável independente. Uma revisão mais recente (Nolan, Jjarema e Austin, 1999) que analisou a segunda década de publicação do JOBM relatou que esta porcentagem foi de 71%. No entanto, Feedback não é sempre eficaz. Em seu agora clássico artigo, Balcazar, Hopkins e Suarez (1985-86) revisaram estudos que foram publicados em quatro importantes periódicos durante 10 anos e categorizaram as intervenções de feedback de acordo com várias dimensões que estariam relacionadas à sua eficácia. Eles então determinaram a porcentagem de estudos em cada categoria que resultou em efeitos consistentes, mistos, desconhecidos ou sem efeitos. Baseados nesta análise, Balcazar e outros afirmaram que o feedback não aumentou o desempenho tão consistentemente ou tão uniformemente quanto muitos acreditam (e.g. Prue e fairbank, 1981; Kopelman, 1982). Por exemplo, eles relataram que quando feedback foi usado sozinho, ele produziu melhoras consistentes em apenas 28% dos estudos. Eles também relataram que o feedback foi combinado com outros procedimentos na maioria dos artigos que eles revisaram (63%), e produziu os efeitos mais consistentes quando foi combinado com conseqüências comportamentais.

Getting a Job with an Undergraduate Degree
Although a great number of people would like to pursue a master’s or doctorate degree in behavior analysis, the reality is that admission spots are limited, and many applicants will be forced to find jobs upon receiving undergraduate degrees. Having recently completed the job search process myself, I’d like to share some of the things I've learned in hopes of making your job search as painless as possible. Since the job search process is complicated and contains many variables, carefully planning on the front-end is essential for success.

What Behavior Analysis Offers Managers
In our view, behavior analysis provides managers with tools they need to be more effective, beginning with teaching them to develop more effective personal relationships. Managers and supervisors who understand and apply the primary behavioral concepts of reinforcement will be well-liked by their employees and have high performing teams. The concepts of behavior analysis are deceptively simple, but their application does not come easily. Further, simply knowing and understanding the concepts is not sufficient. The key is in their application. Effective managers are those who create an environment in which employees want to perform well. Mediocre managers, on the other hand, create a workplace where employees either feel they “have to” perform well or else they care only about meeting the minimal work requirements to keep their jobs.

Reinforcer Identification in Organizational Behavior Management
The identification of reinforcers can be an important step in the development of effective performance management plans. Currently, there is a lack of research in the Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) literature on systematic methods for identifying reinforcers among employees. Thus, we have begun a line of research aimed at investigating various methods of identifying reinforcers in organizations. The study described below is one of the projects in this line of research. Thus far, the main method by which preference for stimuli has been identified in OBM is the reinforcer survey (Daniels, 2004), in which an employee rates the extent to which they would like to receive an item on a 5-point likert scale. Although it is widely assumed that the reinforcer survey is an adequate method of identifying potential reinforcers, no research has examined the accuracy of reinforcer surveys among employees. However, in “clinical” areas of applied behavior analysis, recent research on reinforcer surveys has suggested that they are not a very accurate method of identifying preference for items and activities in some populations. For example, Northup, George, Jones, Broussard, and Vollmer (1996) compared three methods of stimulus preference assessment (SPA) (i.e., survey, verbal choice, and pictorial choice) in typically developing children and found that the accuracy of the survey method was poor. In a replication, Northup (2000) found that the overall accuracy of the survey method was only 57%. In a later study, Wilder, Ellsworth, White, and Schock (2003) compared a survey with verbal and pictorial stimulus choice procedures in adults of average intelligence and found that the accuracy of the survey method was only 56%. The purpose of this study was to assess the accuracy of a survey for identifying reinforcers among employees and to compare the utility of the survey method to a verbal forced choice method of assessing preference for stimuli.

Should We Be Measuring Effect Size in Applied Behavior Analysis?
One of the most persistent debates in applied behavior analysis is the extent to which descriptive and inferential statistics can be useful analytic tools. Effect–size (ES) measurements, however, have received little attention from behavior analysts. Effect–size (Cohen's d) for between–groups research designs is the difference between two groups (experimental and control) in the metric of standard units (Rosenthal, Rosnow & Rubin, 2000). (Al-though there are other measures of ES than Cohen's d, ES and Cohen's d will be treated as synonymous in this article). Effect–size estimations (and statistical power analyses) are enjoying increased attention in statistical circles. In fact, there is a discernible shift away from traditional hypothesis testing among mainstream psychologists as such analyses cannot ever be demonstrations of ES or provide information on probabilities of effect replications. Effect–size demonstrations for applied data can therefore provide a common ground for behavior analysis practitioners and mainstream practitioners, and can lead to a more widespread appeal of our work.

Driving Performance Through Knowledge Management
Studies have concluded that less than 20% of corporate knowledge is captured. Furthermore, less than 20% of that which is captured is reused—or leveraged, in new situations. Most traditional knowledge management systems (KMSs) only focus on the first challenge—capturing knowledge in a corporate repository of information. What about ensuring that the captured knowledge also gets leveraged (that is, re-used)? There is no impact on productivity and efficiency without addressing both the capturing and the leveraging of information and corporate knowledge. If an organization’s KMS is largely a repository of documented information and was not designed to accomplish leveraging of information, it will result in a system full of extraneous information that is optionally used—a quagmire of “stuff”. Although this kind of KMS is common, it delivers little value to the organization.

Orientando o Desempenho através da Gestão de Conhecimento
Estudos têm concluído que menos de 20% do conhecimento corporativo é apreendido. Além disso, menos de 20% do que é apreendido é reutilizado – ou potencializado(1), em novas situações. A maioria dos tradicionais sistemas de gestão de conhecimento (SGCs, ou KMSs do inglês Knowledge Management Systems) se atém apenas ao primeiro desafio – capturar o conhecimento em um repositório corporativo de informação. E quanto a assegurar que o conhecimento capturado também seja potencializado (ou seja, reutilizado)? Não há impacto em produtividade e eficiência sem que se dedique tanto a apreender como a potencializar a informação e o conhecimento corporativo. Se o SGC de uma organização é principalmente um repositório de informações documentadas e não foi projetado para que se consiga potencializar a informação, resultará em um sistema cheio de informações irrelevantes que é usado facultativamente – um pântano de “bugigangas”. Apesar deste tipo de SGC ser comum, agrega pouco valor à organização.

Doing More with Less
In recent times, the working world is about “and” rather than “either/or.” It’s a world in which a leader’s top three-to-five priorities really number more like six-to-eight. It’s a world in which employees see their co-workers lose jobs and then pick up their responsibilities because the work still needs to be done. It’s a world in which the office follows us home on weekends and on vacations by e-mail, cell phone, pager, and BlackBerry™.
Consider these statistics:
Since 2002, American industries have seen an increase in revenue approaching 15%. However, new jobs haven’t been created; in fact, 2.8 million jobs have been lost since 2000.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the average middle-income married couple with children is now working 660 hours more per year than 25 years ago—the equivalent of more than 16 extra weeks of full-time work.
Americans hand back to employers more than $21 billion in unused vacation hours, according to a recent survey by Expedia.com.
What does all of this mean? It means that people are doing more with less. And they are feeling it. According to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey, one-third of workers say they are dissatisfied with their work-life balance. Sixty-eight percent of workers report feeling burnout at work.

Feedback and Incentives Improves Performance
Proof Operators at Union National Bank, Little Rock, Arkansas
The improvement of item processing rate for twelve bank proof operators was the purpose of the plan. A baseline-processing rate of 950 items per hour was computed from historical data. The national average rate for NCR machines was 1300. Initially, we implemented a feedback system in which the operators could compute their rate (net of errors) at the end of each day and compare to a goal of 1300. The average rate rose to 1300 in three weeks. However, over the next several months the rate declined to 1050. At this point I implemented an incentive plan in which operators could earn up to 3% of their base pay for improvements in rate. The plan paid a percentage based upon the percentage of a goal of 1650 items per hour. Within a two-month period, the rate rose above goal and then settled in to an average performance right below goal. This plan remained in effect for two years and sustained performance at just below goal level.

Giving money back for quality saves a food distrubution company $10,000 in one quarter
Incentives have been shown to be more effective than hourly pay in influencing employee performance because they provide monetary reinforcement contingent on the worker’s performance (Abernathy, Duffy, & O’Brien, 1982; Gaetani, Hoxeng, & Austin, 1985) often in weekly paychecks. Although individual incentives may be considered small, they are available each and every time a unit is produced. Therefore, this type of performance management system is a popular technique among employees as well as management (Redmon & Agnew, 1991).

Behavior Based Safety: Linbeck Case Study
Despite the unique challenges of the construction industry, Linbeck Construction Corporation in Houston, Texas has achieved a 50% reduction in their incident rate with a Behavioral Safety Process.Construction projects, no matter how large, are, by their nature, time limited. The nature of the work and the composition of the workforce also change continuously over the course of the project. From clearing a green-field site to final installation of security systems and internal fittings, the people involved can vary from one superintendent coordinating the work of dozens of subcontractors and their scores of employees to a series of general contractor employees such as ironworkers, laborers, and carpenters. Other barriers cited by many in the industry were the education and literacy levels of employees as well as their level of commitment to the company. Construction workers typically move from contractor to contractor as the level of work varies. Many people were concerned that the short-term nature of employment would mean that employees would not be motivated to participate in a Behavioral Safety process.

Gossip and Rumor in Organizations
A Brief Overview
In organizational systems, the dominant patterns of organizational members’ behaviors are perhaps the most challenging components to analyze since they are somewhat informal and are strengthened and transmitted at the individual level. Gossip and rumor are examples of informal practices and communication methods that can either work for or against an organization. Our paper entitled “Organizational Implications of Gossip and Rumor” (in press) draws upon a number of perspectives: anthropological, sociological, social psychological and behavior analytic. These distinctions are followed by an elaboration on the role of rumor and gossip in ambiguous circumstances since environmental ambiguity seems to be one of the primary factors that participate in the development and maintenance of gossip and rumor. From a behavior analytic standpoint, rumor and gossip can be defined as learned interactions with organizational stimuli (e.g., rules, policies, mission statements, vision, other organizational members, etc.) that are shared among members of a given organization. Gossip and rumor tend to occur most frequently when rules, information, and/or policies are unclear, inaccurate or incomplete. In other words, gossip and rumor-type practices increase in ambiguous organizational environments where information regarding work related matters lacks clear description, and key words, phrases, or strategic concepts are ill defined which can leave low-level manager and employees too much room for misunderstanding. In these types of circumstances, employees are likely to engage in problem-solving behaviors such as gossip and rumor to explain the unexplained.

Using Feedback Effectively
Feedback is information performers receive about the quantity or quality of their behavior. (Alvero, Bucklin & Austin, 2001). It is commonly used to alter the performance of a group or individual and is essential in many organizations. However, delivering feedback alone will not necessarily affect performance to the desired extent. Several components should be combined to ensure the effectiveness of feedback. Before delivering feedback, you should decide what should be changed in the organization. Does an entire group need to improve, or just some individuals within a group? Group feedback may be yield more consistent results than feedback delivered to individuals. Individual feedback may also be considerably more expensive to deliver (Prue & Fairbank, 1981). Look at the performance of the group or individual and decide what behaviors you are most interested in altering. You can either measure permanent products or observe behaviors as they occur. The information you deliver to the group or individual will be based on what you decide. After deciding to whom feedback will be delivered, you need to determine what it will include. The most effective feedback will compare the performance to either a standard of how it should have been done, or how it was done in the past by that group or individual. Information of performance compared to a standard could be an exemplar or a goal that was set previously. If it is based on previous performance, it could be compared to prior performance when feedback was delivered or data were collected.

Implementation Tip from Dixon, Hayes, & Stack's Changing Conceptions of Employee Compensation
The effects of contingent reinforcement on a variety of work behaviors have been well known in the organizational behavior management (OBM) literature for some time (e.g., Hopkins, 1987; Mawhinney, 1975). While most applications of monetary incentive-based programs have focused on the individual, this trend is gradually expanding to include group-based pay for performance programs as promising results of this type of system are reported (Honeywell-Johnson & Dickinson, 1999; Kovac, 1986). By using group-based contingencies, individual employees often become more aware of how their own performance affects the group and organization collectively. As a result, individuals are better able to determine the impact of their performance on an organizations’ financial status. A concurrent awareness among individual employees and their performance, as well as the organization’s success has not always been accomplished with individual employee-based compensation systems.

Was ist OBM?
OBM steht für „Organizational Behavior Management“ und lässt sich am ehesten übersetzen als „Verhaltensmanagement in Organisationen.“ OBM ist eine Form der Angewandten Verhaltensanalyse (Applied Behavior Analysis), die wiederum ein Teil der Verhaltensanalyse (Behavior Analysis) ist. Verhaltensanalyse ist eine Wissenschaft, die sich mit dem Verhalten von Menschen befasst, mit dem was Menschen sagen und tun. Die Verhaltensanalyse versucht dieses Verhalten zu verstehen, zu beschreiben, zu erklären, und vorauszusagen. Die Angewandte Verhaltensanalyse beschäftigt sich damit, wie man das Verhalten von Menschen und Tieren ändern kann. Die Mitglieder des OBM-Network sind Verhaltensanalytiker, die zugleich Mitglieder in der Association for Behavior Analysis sind. OBM hat Ähnlichkeiten mit der „Arbeits-, Betriebs- und Organisationspsychologie (ABO)“, unterscheidet sich aber auch von dieser. ABO-Psychologen sind in erster Linie Psychologen, d.h., sie vermuten den Grund für ein bestimmtes Verhalten (z.B. eines Mitarbeiters) in der Person und sie versuchen in erster Linie auf diese Person einzuwirken bzw. auf angenommene innere Eigenschaften dieser Person (z.B. ihre „Leistungsbereitschaft“ oder ihr „Sicherheitsbewusstsein“). Ein großer Bereich innerhalb der ABO-Psychologie aber ist die Personalauswahl, z.B. mittels Testverfahren oder Assessment Centern. Dabei wird kein Verhalten verändert, sondern es werden lediglich Menschen auf bestimmte Arbeitsplätze zugewiesen bzw. für diese Arbeitsplätze ausgewählt.

A Discussion of Safety Training for Caregivers of People with Spinal Cord Impairment
According to an initial survey conducted at James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital, an alarming number of wheelchair-bound patients with spinal cord impairment (SCI) require readmission to the hospital after discharge from acute care (Nelson et al. 2003). The authors examined patients who experienced fall-related fractures and found that 80% of patients who fell required inpatient stays of an average of 66 days. One of the leading activities resulting in falls was unsafe lifts done by families. Re-admittance to the hospital may burden patients and caregivers in areas of cost, time, and effort, and a number of other dimensions. Furthermore, hospital systems are already overtaxed in their physical therapy departments. It seems clear that re-admittance due to avoidable accidents strains patients, families, and hospital resources. Fortunately, there are a number of Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) techniques that can address patient safety in the home and ultimately decrease readmittance. These techniques include peer feedback, task analyses of safe lifts and transfers, and in-home caregiver training. Of the 24 patients examined in the Nelson et al. (2003) study, most fall-related fractures in SCI patients were the result of home inaccessibility or inadequate support at home. Almost half of the fractures occurred during patient transfer, during which the families assisted the person in moving from point A to point B. For example, a transfer would be needed to move the patient from a wheelchair to a car, bed, toilet, or shower seat, or from the floor to the wheelchair following a fall. Performing a transfer requires the caregiver to support the weight of the patient. If performed unsafely, transfers can easily result in re-injury to the patient and injury to the caregiver. The studies discussed below indicate that use of OBM techniques has indications for improving family training. Alavosius and Sulzer-Azaroff (1985) examined patient lifting techniques exhibited by nursing staff in a hospital setting. A safe lift is a vital component of accomplishing a safe transfer. The authors effectively trained nursing staff to perform safe lifts with patients using a task analysis, or step-by-step guide, for performing lifts. While safe lifts and transfers performed by nurses increase patient safety in the hospital and reduce on-the-job injury for nurses, the hospital staff that are responsible for training patient families in safety are the physical therapists. Despite this, our literature search did not reveal any research on family training packages designated to improve the safety of either the SCI patient or the family after hospital discharge.

The Behavioral Sales Model and Six Sigma Approach to Sales
I currently work at a large auto finance corporation that uses Six Sigma (SS) in every department within the bank. Here, SS is seen as a panacea for all problems and many other companies have taken a ride on the bandwagon. However, after I enrolled in an organizational behavior management course, I came to conclude that SS may not be the cure that it is purported to be. SS may affect improvements in customer satisfaction regarding processes that have minimal human interaction (e.g., ATM’s, automated software programs, automated credit transactions, etc.). Unfortunately, SS does not effectively deal with processes requiring intense human interaction (e.g., transaction turnaround times, approvals, customer service, sales, etc.). In contrast, the Behavioral Sales Model (BSM) effectively handles with these shortcomings (Martinko, Casey, & Fadil, 2001).

Pay for Performance in Human Service Settings
The field of human services encompasses many areas of human needs. Many agencies are government funded and are responsible for providing care and assistance to people in the community. Some clients require assistance with physical, psychiatric, or developmental disabilities. Others have housing or health issues. Some other areas of human service also include education and child welfare. Although there have been budgetary cuts, the field of human services will only continue to grow as the needs of many different client populations must be met. Although human service agencies are an integral part of society, I have observed that many are plagued with organizational problems such as high turnover rate, which may affect how the agencies function. From my experience as a counselor working in a residential services program for the psychiatrically disabled, possible factors associated with the high turnover rate are vague job structure, high stress, and low salary. These factors may contribute to ongoing problems with staff performance such as absenteeism, tardiness, incomplete paperwork, and insufficient client interaction. Employees receive training until competency has been met. The staff is taught how to properly interact with clients in order to assist them and determine which goals should be met for both clients and staff. Employees also receive feedback from clients and management. Yet, consequences to maintain proper work behavior are still lacking. In order to maintain staff performance, differential and effective positive consequences need to be implemented (Arco, 1993).

Multifaceted Training Programs in Human Service Settings: There is Still Hope
Personnel in human services settings often lack the professional and clinical training needed to provide effective treatment to persons with developmental disabilities. While many perceive the main goal of human services settings to be the management of the consumers’ behavior, an equally important mission is to establish and maintain the proficiency of the staff. Many current training packages lack both in-depth skills training and proficiency maintenance. However, programs which are well-developed and all-encompassing tend to show more success in terms of maintaining staff proficiency (Reid & Parsons, 2004). Though rare, such programs do exist, and an example of one will be discussed. Successful training programs in human service settings have been shown to use a multifaceted approach, one which addresses both methods used to acquire skills as well as methods used to maintain those skills (Parsons, Schepis & Reid, 1987; Dyer, Schwartz & Luce, 1984). Most common training programs only include performance modeling, practice and feedback, and verbal and written instructions. While these components are essential to the training of proficient staff, the issue of maintaining proficiency is not addressed. It is for this reason that adequate training packages should encompass a multifaceted approach, aimed both at training and maintaining the skills necessary to provide effective treatment.

Performance Management: Do the Means Justify the Ends?
In the migration from the laboratory to applied settings, behavior analysts tended to retain the experimenter-subject or therapist-client service delivery model. When this proved impractical in organizational settings, the model was retained by attempting to train managers as ‘therapists.’ This model has often failed to deliver significant and sustainable organizational improvements due to the inability of managers to implement effective performance improvement initiatives. It is recommended that a new role, the Performance System Technologist, replace the manager training model. The PST would be responsible for pinpointing performance improvement opportunities and assisting managers in the design, implementation, and evaluation of performance improvement initiatives. It is further suggested that PST training be expanded to include techniques from the disciplines of business and industrial engineering.

OBM in Educational and Human Service Settings
In the year 2000, a team of behavior analysts affiliated with The Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center of the University of Massachusetts Medical School was awarded federal funds from the U. S. Department of Education, Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, under a program entitled “Learning Anytime, Anywhere Partnership (LAAP).” As a way of addressing the major need for personnel skilled in applied behavior analysis in the autism education field, we undertook to design, develop, and field-test a four-course undergraduate level internet-based series entitled Behavioral Intervention in Autism (BIA). An early step involved using a Delphi process to identify what knowledge and skills key leaders in the field agreed our students would need to master. Among the 40 plus topics that were endorsed, Working with staff was one considered important, and we agreed. Consequently, we included material on Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) within the curriculum and applied those principles in conducting the program as well. Now, after field-testing our instructional modules, we are revamping this material to include an expanded version of the major points. Below I discuss the general need for managerial and supervisory personnel in early intervention, public education, and human service organizations, to be skilled not only in ABA but also in OBM; also some ways managers and supervisors of autism educational programs’ can use OBM methods to address their programmatic needs. The ways we ourselves used OBM in the design and implementation of our curriculum are described for illustrative purposes.

Reducing Vehicle Accidents at a Residential Agency
Ensuring the safety of children when driving is always a top priority. The Massachusetts Department of Traffic Public Safety (2004) reported that there were a total of 4,178 vehicle accidents in Massachusetts in 2003, and that 434 of those resulted in fatalities. The Massachusetts Public Safety Department also reported that motor vehicle accidents were the leading cause of unintentional deaths of children under 15. Agencies that transport children on a regular basis have a vested interest in developing training procedures designed to decrease the likelihood of vehicle accidents. Behavior analytic techniques have much to offer in the area of reducing on-site work injuries, and in increasing driver safety (Alvero & Austin, 2004; Huybers, Van Houten, & Malenfant, 2004). For example, Ludwig and Geller (2001) used behavioral interventions to increase the safety belt use of pizza delivery drivers. The present study evaluates an antecedent intervention strategy on motor vehicle (van) accidents at a residential treatment facility. An obstacle course training was developed to deliver in-vivo instruction and feedback on specific driving skills commonly associated with accidents. Skills were identified through a review of past van accidents, and the driver errors that caused them. Although these accidents had not resulted in any serious injuries, damage to vehicles had occurred that required repair and it was considered desirable to decrease the likelihood of future serious injury.

JOBM Takes the Bronze!
According to data accessed on the Thomson ISI JCR database in January 2005 and displayed in Table 1, the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management’s Impact Factor in 2003 is 1.793, placing it as the journal with the third highest impact in “Applied Psychology” (as defined in the JCR) behind the Journal of Applied Psychology and Human Resource Management, respectively, and ahead of such stalwart I/O Psychology journals as Journal of Vocational Behavior, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes. Further, JOBM’s impact factor is linearly accelerated (r = .91) over the recent 5-year period. JOBM’s climb in this ranking also was noticed by NYU business professor William Starbuck (2005) who cited JOBM as a ‘Rising Star’ journal on his website report of journal citation trends. JOBM is a high quality, high impact journal publishing research that makes a difference in the field of applied psychology. Its ranking of third in impact compares favorably to (or often is better than) other journals in the area that reputational surveys often identify as being “top journals” publishing high quality research (e.g., Zickar & Highhouse, 2001). Given both JOBM’s rapid rise over the past five years and the fact that reputational rankings are slow to change (Christenson & Sigelman, 1985), it should be expected that while the journal’s appearance in such subjective lists may emerge in time, the data show clearly that JOBM ranks among the best journals in applied psychology.

Increasing Pre-Designated Drivers:
An Extension of a Prompt and Incentive Package
The purpose of this study was to increase the frequency of Pre-Designated Drivers using a cost-effective, non-intrusive prompt and incentive program as a replication and extension of prior research by Brigham, et al. In their 1995 study, the authors used visual prompts of framed posters and placards advertising contingent incentives (free non-alcoholic beverages) for being a Designated Driver. Their results showed a significant and effective increase in self-reported Designated Drivers. Using a similar setting and population, a local restaurant/bar that caters primarily to patrons aged 25-50 years old, this study used positive placard prompts at the location where patrons order, positive reinforcement of free drinks contingent on a Pre-Designated Driver, as well as verbal prompts by the waitstaff.

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