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| Motivating Human Service Staff: Maximizing Work Effort and Work Enjoyment. |
| Friday, May 23, 2008 |
| 6:00 PM–9:00 PM |
| 4B |
| Area: OBM; Domain: Applied Research |
| CE Instructor: Dennis H. Reid, Ph.D. |
| DENNIS H. REID (Carolina Behavior Analysis and Support Center Ltd.), CAROLYN W. GREEN (JIRDC) |
| Description: This workshop will describe strategies for maximizing work effort and enjoyment among support staff in human service agencies. Initially, an evidence-based, behavioral process for training and managing staff performance will be presented in terms of step-by-step procedures for supervisors and staff trainers. The focus will then be on how to ensure staff not only work diligently and proficiently, but also enjoy their day-to-day work. Strategies to be discussed include staff training procedures that are most preferred by staff, how to monitor staff performance in a manner acceptable to staff, providing supportive and corrective feedback in a manner generally preferred by staff, and how to make a supervisors feedback more reinforcing to staff. Routine procedures supervisors can implement to enhance the overall enjoyment of staffs work environment will likewise be described. The latter procedures are based on research that assessed the desirability of respective management strategies from staffs perspective, a survey of over 1,000 experienced supervisors (and former support staff) regarding their views on the best and worst things supervisors can do to motivate staff, and recent research demonstrating how to make highly nonpreferred work tasks more desirable for staff. |
| Learning Objectives: a. At the conclusion of the workshop, the participant will be able to describe six key steps of a behavioral approach to staff training and supervision. b. At the conclusion of the workshop, the participant will be able to describe what research has shown regarding the type of performance feedback that is usually most and least acceptable to staff. c. At the conclusion of the workshop, the participant will be able to describe a means of systematically monitoring staff performance that typically is well received by staff. d. At the conclusion of the workshop, the participant will be able to describe three supervisory actions that survey research has shown to enhance staffs� enjoyment with their work environment and three actions shown to impede enjoyment. e. At the conclusion of the workshop, the participant will be able to describe an evidence-based strategy a supervisor can use to enhance staff preference for a strongly disliked work task. |
| Activities: Activities of participants will include: (1) listening to instructor lecture/presentations, (2) viewing power point summaries of key points, (3) completing pencil and paper activities relating to scenarios depicting applications of key points, (4) viewing role-play demonstrations of target procedures by instructors, (5) practicing target procedures in role-play situations with performance feedback by instructors (provided until individual participants demonstrate competency in accordance with performance checklists employed by instructors) , and (6) opportunities to ask questions of instructors and receive instructor answers. |
| Audience: The target audience includes anyone who either supervises staff or is dependent on staff for carrying out programmatic procedures (e.g., authors of behavior support plans). The workshop will be most relevant for supervisors and managers in group homes and related residential settings, adult day treatment sites for people with developmental disabilities, consultants, and supervisors in school settings serving people with special needs. |
| Content Area: Practice |
| Instruction Level: Intermediate |