Chris Hutson
Dr. Tom McFarland
Organizational Behavior
4/15/2016
Case Study: Joe Salatino 1. What kind of reinforcers does Salatino use to motivate his salespeople?
Joe Salatino uses positive reinforcement techniques to motivate his salespeople. Positive reinforcement can be defined as a pleasant consequence after the occurrence of a desired behavior. There are different types of positive reinforcements and they are primary and secondary reinforcers. A primary reinforcer falls under the category of food and shelter because a person already knows the value of it. On the other hand, a secondary reinforcer is in the category of money because it has a certain value to it. Salatino’s uses the secondary reinforcer because he believes in spending money on commissions and bonuses to give to employees for their hard work and to motivate them to do an even better job.
He has a system to where during the day he uses different types of motivation techniques to pump up his employees to sell their product at an efficient and effective pace. For example, on a recent Friday morning Salatino set up a rotating blue light in the salesroom to motivate his employees for that day. The light indicated that there was a special pen deal going on only when that light was on and rotating. He kept this light on for an hour and it allowed employees to give their customers a two for one deal on Stars and Stripes promotional pens. When that light turns off then the deal is over and employees have to go to selling pens at their regular price. Using this type of motivation can be very beneficial to a company because it gives employees a sense of urgency to get their job done and to do it well in a short period of time. I feel as if the employees would get an adrenaline rush because it is so fast paced, and this will lead to them to being more productive and in the long run lead to more sales. Also, this will keep the customers happy and coming back for more since they are getting a great deal. 2. What kind of reinforcement schedule is used by Great Northern American to pay salespeople?
The Great Northern American Company most likely uses the variable interval schedule. This type of schedule represents changes in the amount of time between reinforcers. In the book there is an example that goes perfect with the schedule that the Great Northern American Company follows. For example, the head of housekeeping for a Dallas, Texas hospital uses almost the same guidelines as Joe Salatino. She checks her employee’s performances by attendance. They receive $100 for perfect attendance and a score above 92 percent on 23 performance indicators. Also, she inspects them at random times during the month. For the Great Northern American Company, some of Joe Salatino’s salespeople can earn more than $60,000 per year, but his top performers can earn up to or over $100,000 per year. All of this based on how well a salesperson knows their clients and how many they have. Also, it can be based off how many phone calls a salesperson makes a day and how quick the employee can seal the deal. For example, one of his salespeople makes 20 to 25 calls per hour and can get the deal done in under 5 minutes. Also, he earns between 5 and 12 percent on the list price.
The hospital example and the Great Northern American Company go hand in hand because they both base the pay for their employees by job performance and the amount time that they work. Also, they keep up with their employees very diligently. 3. If you were Salatino, how might the concept of self-efficacy help you hire successful salespeople?
Self-efficacy can be defined as an individual’s estimate of his or her own ability to perform a specific task in a particular situation. An employer wants to hire a potential employee with a very high self-efficacy. Employees that have a high self-efficacy believe that they have the ability to be needed, nothing from outside of the office will affect their job performance, and they always give their best effort that is required to get the job done. An employer does not want a person with low self-efficacy because this type of person believes that no matter what they do or how hard they try nothing good will come out of their job performance. Having an employee with low self-efficacy can lead to the office morale being low because this type of person is very negative. On the other hand, having an employee with high self-efficacy can bring more light to the office and even increase office morale.
In Joe Salatino’s case he wants to be able to hire people with the highest self-efficacy that they can offer. He looks for people that can bring up office morale and can have a very high job performance. The salespeople that work for him are used to environment that is very fast paced and chaotic, which means he needs to find people that are willing to work in that type of environment and are able to stay positive and bring in the profits at a high rate that Salatino is used to seeing. His salespeople must be able to communicate effectively and have the outmost respect for their customers. Also, they need to be highly self-motivated and they need to know their own strengths and weaknesses and who thrive on taking the initiative without being told what to do all the time, which is under the category of having high self-efficacy. Overall, if I were Joe Salatino I would just forget about the people that have a low self-efficacy and focus on the potential employees with high self-efficacy because that will lead to more success in his business as a whole.