Using Action Plans to Increase Performance

Action plans offer the opportunity help people think through the various challenges they face and apply some type of plan on how to overcome these difficulties. Whether discussing students, employees our yourself it is beneficial to consider the benefits of implementing action plans in a way that encourages greater insight by the person writing them. Insight sometimes leads to higher levels of performance.

In my experience in labor relations and as a professor in business I find that performance issues may not be willful but are a result of a lack of experience or understanding. For example, in labor relations I have found attendance to be a major employer concern. Through the standard grievance process employees can promise to make it to work on time but without an action plan the problem isn't likely to be resolved soon.

The same idea applies to students who consistently fail to turn their work by class deadlines. Each assignment they scramble for some excuse that will get them off the hook. The problem is not the creativity of the excuses but their processes. Understanding how chronic poor performance is part of a process of thinking is beneficial for finding solutions.

Before giving grace to poor performance consider requiring an action plan to ensure the person has some understanding on how to improve the situation. Requiring the person to develop a plan on how to change their processes helps them think through what is causing the problem and how it can be improved. They can search through their strengths and weaknesses that help them discover equitable solutions to the problem.

Most of us live our lives by patterns and reflecting on those changes needed to adjust the pattern is beneficial to sustainable performance.  An employee who has an attendance problem could discover the necessity of starting early, putting out their items the night before, and getting plenty of rest. A student who turns their work in chronically late may need to start assignments at the beginning of each week and also devote a full hour to writing each day.

Conference: Legal & Effective Discipline & Documentation

In our litigious society, it has become more and more important for supervisors to know how to document and discipline employees to avoid law suits and manage employee performance effectively.
“If It Wasn’t Documented It Didn’t Happen: Legal & Effective Discipline & Documentation” on Tuesday, January 28, 2014 .

Areas covered in the topic

• Analyzing poor work performance & help employees turn it around
• Avoiding the negative consequences of inadequate documentation & discipline
• Utilizing the range of disciplinary options.
• Responding quickly and appropriately to common disciplinary infractions
• Keeping a legal Performance Log
• Distinguishing between subjective and objective documentation
• Working with employees to develop Performance Improvement Plans
• How to write a performance improvement plan
• Filling out formal HR disciplinary paperwork
• Protecting yourself and your organization from legal landmines
• And much more!! 

Exclusive Q&A session following the live event to get advice unique to your situation, directly from our expert speaker

If interested, please click the following link to register and get your early bird discount :

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Please apply discount code "E99NACK2" at checkout to get an additional $20 discount on registration.

Call 800-223-8720 for special discount on group pricing.

Book Review: Work and Motivation by Victor Vroom

Work and Motivation by Victor Vroom is a paradigm shifting book that looks at the human motivation within the workplace through both an individual and group based lens. For managers who are seeking methods of improving on worker motivation the book is not one that should be passed up without a thorough read.  It provides keen insight on the potential, nature, and limitations of employee motivation. 

The book attempts to summarize the findings of industrial psychologists and research related to human motivation within the workplace. The work focused on three areas:

1.       The choices made by persons among work roles.

2.       The extent of their satisfaction with their chosen work roles

3.       The level of their performance or effectiveness in their chosen work roles. 

Vroom makes the assertion that there are two types of determinants of attitudes which include 1.) The cognized utility of the attitude toward attaining particular outcomes; and, 2.) The intensity and nature of the affect expected from the outcomes. In essence people will either move toward a particular outcome or avoid a particular outcome based upon how they mentally weight and judge information to make a final decision. It is these decisions and expected outcomes that the expectancy theory is developed.

Expectancy theory makes the assumption that worker motivation is a result of how much a worker wants an outcome (valence), the cognitive belief that a certain behavior will lead to a particular outcome (expectancy) and that performance will lead to the particular outcome (valence). Each employee is seen as having needs and scanning their environment to find pathways that are most convenient and efficient in creating needs fulfillment. 

After reading the work you may also come to the conclusion about how important it is for people who work within groups to have positive relationships with their management team if effective improvements in workplace motivation are going to be realized. It is through both their workgroups as well as management relationships that they make certain decisions to engage or not engage the workplace.

“One of the necessary conditions for exchange of rewards to occur between persons is some degree of interaction between them.” (Vroom, 1964, pp 138). 

It is hard to create expectations and possible rewards unless there is interaction among organizational members. It is through these interactions that employees determine their potential approaches and opportunities to achieve rewards. Thus, the interactions among the work group and the workers interaction with management influence a significant proportion of people’s decisions.

The book is well written and is scientific in its orientation. It not only proposes the cognitive theory of expectancy but also justifies it through leading research of the day. Even though the book is dated it provides an excellent understanding of the concepts of motivation and satisfaction.  Each aspect of his writing is cited with appropriate references. Such a book should be part of every manager’s and business student’s library.

Vroom, V.  (1964). Work and Motivation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. ISBN 0-7879-0030-0

Price: $35

Pages: 336

Blog Ranking: 4.7 (No age penalty as it is a root theorist).