Athletic Training Management

1. Athletic Training Management Chapter 2 Personnel Motivation and Performance Appraisal

2. Personnel Motivation • Motivation is the forces that account for the level, direction, and persistence of effort expended to reach a goal. • Direction is the selection of a particular task from an available group of tasks. • The level of motivation is the strength of a response once the direction has been chosen.

3. Motivation • Some basic fallacies: • Attitude produces behavior (actually behavior produces attitude) • Work is a process for which the worker receives either a reward or punitive action (the reality is once the reward is removed, no amount of punishment will produce lasting behavior). Fear of supervisors can lead to sabotage.

4. Motivation • Five basic factors: • Need – internal state that makes certain outcomes viable • Tension – caused by unfulfilled needs • Drive – strength of striving to meet the need • Search behavior – seeking to fulfill the need, must be possible to meet or motivation drops • Satisfied need – reduces tension

5. Content Theories • Content theories derive from the internal characteristics of people. These theories focus internally on needs and how they can be satisfied.

6. Content Theories • Abraham Maslow’s Theory of Needs • Needs are missing elements that people seek to reach physical and mental stability • Water, food, sex, or warmth are examples • Sensory privation is another, that is, sights and sounds of human interaction. • Maslow classified needs in a hierarchy with the most basic needs at the foundation.

7. Maslow • Based his theory on two assumptions: • The deficit principle holds that a satisfied need is not a motivator. • The progression principle holds that a need does not become activated until the next lower ones are already satisfied.

8. Maslow • Physiological needs – food, clothing , shelter, sex, and the resources to buy them • Safety needs – freedom from environmental threats of a physical, psychological, or economic nature • These needs can never be permanently satisfied, only met for the short run

9. Maslow • Social and affiliation needs include friendship, love, affection, and acceptance into groups, either formal or informal. • Esteem needs include self-respect, titles, status symbols, power, prestige, and promotions. • Self-actualization needs encompass learning, competence, creativity and success.

10. Maslow • In theory as each level is met beginning at the bottom of the pyramid, new needs surface and seek to be satisfied. • Reality is that individual differences exist with respect to those wants and needs • People put different time priorities and intensity priorities on their needs. • They may seek to satisfy lesser needs when higher needs are possible but riskier

11. Maslow • They may also seek to satisfy higher-level needs before lower needs have been met • At the higher levels, the needs are rarely met while at the lower levels they are frequently met, but only temporarily • Other researchers found that Maslow’s theories only held up with low-level expectations • Cultural factors and social recognition alter the perception

12. David McClelland • McClelland divided needs into thee basic areas: • Achievement needs • Seek jobs having individual responsibility for results, challenging but attainable goals, and feedback • Jobs in pro sports, Division I college or jobs as director of sports medicine clinics • Power needs • Enjoy being “in charge” – they place most importance on making others conform to their views • Personal power can lead to authoritarianism • Social power can influence others to good

13. McClelland, cont • Affiliation needs • High needs for affiliation cause seeking close interpersonal relationships, companionship, and social approval • Seek to avoid confrontation rather than making unpopular decisions • These people seek jobs in settings with strong one-on-one relationships that can be nurtured over time such as sport medicine clinics • If present job satisfaction increased, if absent there was only mild dissatisfaction

14. Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory • Frederick Herzberg focused on “intrinsic” and “extrinsic” factors • He found that the job factors that made workers happy had little to do with the job itself. These factors he called intrinsic, and included achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement, and the possibility of growth

15. Herzberg • The extrinsic factors included things relating to the work setting such as salary, benefits, supervision, working conditions, relationships with supervisors, peers, and subordinates, job security, and personal life • If these are missing job dissatisfaction is high, if present the worker is neutral

17. Herzberg • This work led to job enrichment programs • Employers need to remember that adding more extrinsic factors will only get us to neutrality • Care must be exercised to provide “vertical load” rather than “horizontal load” • Horizontal load is to assign more work • Vertical load increases range, role, and challenge of the job

18. Edward Deci • Pursuit of competence is a powerful motivator • The act of striving motivates people • Most people need and seek stimulation in their external environment. If not present, their internal environment will create an illusion of an external environment. A university athletic trainer once told me that in 35 years one athlete brought his wife and children into the athletic training rooms on a homecoming visit and told them that these were the people that allowed him to play football and remain healthy

19. Process Theories • Process theories describe motivation as a process that explains human behavior. These theories look at how individual behavior is directed and maintained.

20. Process Theories • Adams’s Equity Theory hypothesizes that workers will compare their efforts and rewards with a sample of others in similar situations • The theory is people wish to be treated equitably • Each person will establish a ratio of what you put in and what you get out • They compare their ratio with others

21. Adams • Those who perceive inequity can either • Change inputs – what you give • Change outputs – what you get • Change the reference sample – other peers • Change jobs – another job or a new profession

22. Vroom’s Expectancy Theory • Victor Vroom built his theory around • Expectancy – belief that a person will actually achieve a specific goal • Instrumentality – rewards and other outcomes will occur as a result of successful performance • Valance – the value a person places on specific outcomes

23. Vroom • Three areas • Effort-performance linkage is the perception as to how hard the achievement of a behavior will be • Will you sat the course • Performance-reward linkage is the belief that taking action will have desirable results • There is a relationship between what you do and what you get

24. Vroom • Attractiveness is the importance a worker places on the preferred outcome the worker does not have but wants • Once you achieve the goal you need to decide if it was worth it • What did you give up and can you live with that?

25. Performance Appraisal • Viewed as a measurement problem, but is probably a communications problem

26. B.F. Skinner • B.F. Skinner thought that if you encounter a stimulus you will respond. If the stimulus is positive the rewarded behavior will be repeated. If the stimulus is aversive, the behavior probably will not be repeated. • He called this operant conditioning. • Four variables • Positive reinforcement • Extinction • Punishment • Avoidance learning

27. Skinner, cont • Positive reinforcement is a reward that satisfies in some way. Positive reinforcement increases the strength of a behavior that it follows. The reinforcer may be appreciation, status, money, or anything else similar to Herzberg’s intrinsic motivators. • Better team assignments for both staff and athletic training students are usually given to those who display competency with a good work ethic.

28. Skinner, cont • Extinction refers to a procedure where a previously reinforced behavior is no longer supported. One way to cause extinction is to ignore the individual rather than directly sanctioning the behavior. • As previously rewarded behavior is no longer reinforced, the lack of reward over time will cause the behavior to be eliminated.

29. Skinner, cont • Punishment is use of an aversive stimulus designed to inflict enough hardship to cause the behavior to stop. This can include a decrease in responsibility or rank, denial of privileges, or criticism. • Skinner did not approve of this method as punishment usually only suppresses behaviors, it does not eliminate them.

30. Skinner, cont • Punishment commonly results in negative feelings directed at the punisher. • In some cases, punishment is in the eye of the beholder. • When an aversive stimulus is removed as a behavior is completed, then the likelihood is the behavior will be repeated. The question is whether the return of a positive stimulus or the removal of the negative one caused the reinforcement.

31. Skinner, cont • Avoidance learning is a form of behavior whereby the person learns how to avoid getting punished rather than doing what is right. • When given a choice, people will decide between accepting the punishment and completing the desired response.

32. Hammer • W. Clay Hammer identified six rules that can be used to expand Skinner’s work. • Do not reward uniformly. Failure to discriminate means reinforcement that the minimum amount of work will be acceptable. • Failing to respond to negative performance is a negative response, not a neutral one. Failing to give a positive response when it is due will decrease performance.

33. Hammer, cont • People must know what they need to do to be rewarded. • People need to know when they are doing something wrong. To reduce errors, correction should take place during the activity. In fact the longer the delay the less effect the punishment has on altering behavior.

34. Hammer, cont • Never punish a subordinate in front of others. Public punishment equals public humiliation, a situation that may cause co-workers to come to the defense of the person reprimanded. • Be fair. Consequences of a behavior should be appropriate. Over rewarding or under rewarding are equally detrimental.

35. Performance Appraisal • Equal Pay Act of 1963 prohibits paying men and women different amounts for performing the same job. • Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. • EEOC guidelines expanded this in 1966 and 1970.

36. Performance Appraisal • In Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1970) the courts ruled that any testing procedure used to hire a person must be related to the job. There must be a correlation between the test and the ability to do the job. Thus asking an applicant for an athletic training position to write an essay on the merits of Dr. Kevorkian would be illegal.

37. Performance Appraisal • In Brito v. Zia (1973) the courts ruled that employee evaluations were actually tests and therefore subject to EEOC interpretation. • In Albemarle Paper Company v. Moody (1975) the courts declared the accuracy and validity of the tests could be assessed.

38. Performance Appraisal • With these two cases the courts determined that performance appraisals are open to question as to being able to demonstrate past performance and to predict future performance. • The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1981) stated that any criteria by which maximum age limits are enforced have to be based on business necessity or public safety.

39. American’s with Disabilities Act • The ADL (PL 101-336 as amended by PL 104-59) (1990) is designed to eliminate discrimination against those with disabilities. A facet of this law states that when a disabled person is adequately performing his job performance evaluation may not be used to eliminate that person from the workforce.

40. ADA, cont • Employers need to determine each function of a job and ask if • The function is actually required to be done • Would removing the function alter the job • This allows a complete written job description actually reflecting the duties performed on the job including knowledge, skills, experience, education, certification, licenses, and other job-related criteria.

41. Effective Performance Appraisal • Initially who is evaluated and who is doing the evaluation must be determined. • A study by Ray (1991) found only 35% of ATs in professional sports were evaluated on an annual basis. • Ray also reported a disconnect between the raters and ratees in that the raters did not actually know the criteria to be an athletic trainer.

42. Effective Performance Appraisal • In most cases individuals are evaluated without context and interrelationships taken into account. • Total department evaluation is getting more frequent. This allows the strengths of each individual to contribute to the whole. • Ferris, et.al., (1995) argue that performance appraisal systems should be outcomes or results based as defined by customer satisfaction.

43. Effective Performance Appraisal • Defining the rewards given for superior performance is difficult. Adequate rewards must be given for high performance. • It is important to remember that people do things for their own reasons, not the reasons the supervisor wants. • Herzberg’s extrinsic and intrinsic rewards are important issues here.

44. Performance Models • Comparative Approach • The comparative approach requires each person to be compared with others. • Ranking requires the rater to rate employees from best to worst. This was the method criticized in Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody when the court found there were no criteria for the ranking. • Forced distribution is where the rater is forced to rate a certain number of people in predetermined categories. The problem is that even if everyone is superior, the system requires some to be rated unacceptable.

45. Performance Models • Paired comparison requires each person to be rated against every other person individually. Each comparison is either a win or loss for that employee. The total of wins and losses establishes the overall rank. • Attribute Approach • The attribute approach focuses on whether an employee possesses particular attributes such as leadership, initiative, dress, cooperation, etc.

46. Performance Models • Graphic rating scales rate particular attributes on a numerical rating scale. One employee at a time is rated individually. The validity of the attributes rated is open to question. This was the focus of Brito v. Zia in which Spanish speaking employees were often discharged for poor spoken language skills, even though they did not meet the public in their work. • Mixed-standard scales utilize traits from a number of areas are evaluated and representative statements for each attribute are created and mixed together.

47. Performance Models • Behavioral Approach • Managers are required assess behaviors that are required to perform a job and how a particular employee meets these behaviors. • Critical incident methodology demands a rater observe over an extended period of time (such as a year) and keep a written record of both positive and negative incidents. The problem with this method is people do not keep good records over time and raters do not properly compare the importance of various incidents.

48. Performance Models • Behaviorally anchored rating scales develop specific behavior anchors. Raters compile critical incident reports focusing on the anchors. There is higher inter-rater reliability, but a tendency to give more importance to incidents closer to the anchors. • Results Approach • The results approach measures results in a theoretically objective fashion. The assumption is that the results indicate the worth of the organization

49. Performance Models • Management by Objectives is the best example of this approach. Strategic goals are created and passed down the organization until it reaches the workers. At this level local goals are mutually agreed upon to facilitate the overall plan.

50. Rating Errors • Leniency error exists when the rater consistently rates all performance too high or too low. • Halo error occurs when one trait influences the ratings for others. • i.e. an athletic training student who always looks busy (cleaning tables, stocking supplies, etc.,) may have athletic department approval for the best clinical assignments yet others could be far better able to react to emergencies. Fellow students may even have to cover for the mistakes made.