The Accuracy of Managerial Prediction of Employee Preference

1
The Accuracy of Managerial Prediction of Employee
Preference

• David A. Wilder, Kristen Rost, and Meghan McMahon
• Florida Institute of Technology

2
Overview

• Rationale
• Method
• Results
• Discussion
• Practical Implications
• Future Research Suggestions

3
Rationale

• Little research in organizational behavior
  management (OBM) has been devoted to
• Identification of employees preferred items /
  activities to be used in performance improvement
  plans
• Managerial predictive accuracy of employees
  preferred items / activities

4
Rationale

• Why research these topics?
• Accurate prediction of employee preference may be
  valuable in the development of effective
  performance management interventions.
• Assessing the accuracy of managerial predication
  may help determine if a formal preference
  assessment is needed with employees.

5
Rationale

• Previous Research
• Business setting
• Wilder, Therrien, and Wine (in press)
• Found that a preference survey was slightly more
  accurate than a verbal choice procedure for the
  identification of potential reinforcers among
  four administrative assistants

6
Rationale

• Previous research
• Human Service Setting
• Green, Reid, White, Halford, Brittain, Gardner
  (1988)
• First, assessed the preferences of seven
  handicapped students
• Next, asked staff to indicate what items they
  thought would be preferred by the students

7
Rationale

• Student preference and staff opinion did not
  coincide
• Reinforcer assessment conducted
• Results suggest that staff were unable to
  accurately identify items that would function as
  reinforcers for their students
• Illustrates the importance of formally assessing
  preference for stimuli directly with students

8
Rationale

• Purpose of this study
• Examine the extent to which managers in a variety
  of organizational settings could accurately
  predict what their employees state are preferred
  items / activities.

9
Method

• Participants and Setting
• 27 employees and 5 managers participated
• Participants were employed in one of 5 settings
• 3 employees - customer service representatives at
  a satellite communications company
• 8 employees - customer service associates at an
  industrial warehouse supply store
• 7 employees - administrative assistants at a
  university academic office

10
Method

• 6 employees - were food service workers at a
  cafeteria
• 3 employees managers at a cafeteria or eatery
• Managers included 3 men and 2 women.
• Each manager supervised employees at one of the 5
  different sites

11
Method

• Procedure
• Researchers administered manager stimulus
  preference assessment surveys
• How well do you know this employee?
• List items / activities you think this employee
  would like to earn
• Rank these items in order of preference for
  employee

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MANAGER STIMULUS PREFERENCE ASSESSMENT SURVEY

• Interviewer Name ________________________________
  ________________________
• Date ____________________________________________
  _______________________
• Time ____________________________________________
  ______________________
• Managers Name __________________________________
  _______________________
• Organization / Dept. ____________________________
  __________________________
• Employee that Manager is Referring To
  _______________________________________
• Do you know this employee not at all a
  little fairly well well very well
• List as many items / activities that you can
  think of that you think __________________ might
  be willing to work for or that you think might be
  effective when used in a performance improvement
  plan for ___________________. Please remember
  that the employee might earn these items /
  activities repeatedly, so the monetary value of
  the items / activities that you identify should
  be reasonably low (e.g., 5 or less).
• LIST Rank
• 1.
• 2.

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Method

• Researchers administered employee stimulus
  preference assessment surveys
• How well do you know this manager?
• Rank these items in order of your preference

14
EMPLOYEE STIMULUS PREFERENCE ASSESSMENT SURVEY

• Interviewer Name ________________________________
  ________________________
• Date ____________________________________________
  _______________________
• Time ____________________________________________
  ______________________
• Employees Name__________________________________
  _______________________
• Organization / Dept. ____________________________
  __________________________
• Manager that Employee Works Under
  _______________________________________
• Do you know this manager not at all a
  little fairly well well very well
• Rank each item / activity below in terms of the
  extent to which you would like to see the item
  used as part of an incentive plan for improving
  your performance on the job. For example, if you
  would most prefer or like the item identified as
  3rd, place a 1 under the Rank column for that
  item. Continue until you have ranked all items.
• LIST Rank
• 1. 10 gift certificate to a spa
• 2. 10 gift certificate to a shoe store

15
Method
Stimuli Identified by Managers

• floating holiday
• tickets to a local sporting event
• 10 gift certificate to a spa
• 10 gift certificate to a restaurant
• 10 gift certificate to a movie rental store
• 10 gift certificate to a shoe store
• 10 gift certificate to a book store
• 10 gift certificate to a sports store
• calligraphy supplies
• computer supplies
• 4 hours off of work
• free drinks while working
• access to cookies at work

• access to chocolate at work
• 10 worth of lip gloss
• 10 worth of hair accessories
• 10 worth of nail polish
• lottery tickets
• 10 lunch with co-workers
• one day of overtime
• formal recognition of performance by manager
• small tuition award for an employees child
• permission to attend a professional event
• travel to a local industry event

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Method

• Data analyses
• The results of the manager survey and each
  employee survey were compared.
• The manager rank and employee rank for each item
  was compared using Kendall Rank-Order Correlation
  Coefficients.
• The number of participants for whom managers
  correctly identified the most highly preferred
  item / activity was tallied.

17
Results

• Satellite communications company
• Correlations between the managers predictions of
  preference and employees actual preference were
  all 0.2
• Industrial Warehouse
• Correlations ranged from -.4 to .8 (M.28).

18
Results

• University academic office
• Correlations ranged from -1.0 to .67
• (M-.28)
• University cafeteria
• Correlations ranged from -.4 to 1 (M.33)
• University cafeteria and eatery mgt.
• Correlations ranged from -.87 to .73 (M.02)

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Results

• Overall, the 27 correlations ranged from -1 to
  1(M.11)
• Significance
• 5 of the 27 correlations were significant at the
  .05 level
• Two of the 5 significant correlations were
  negative

20
Results

• Correlations were generally low and variable
• However, managers correctly identified their
  employees most preferred item for 15 of 27
  employees

21
Results

• An additional analysis was conducted in order to
  examine if the variability in the correlations
  was a function of how well a manager reported he
  or she knew an employee.

22
Results

• Additional Analysis
• The relationship between the managers report of
  how well s/he knew the employee and the
  correlation obtained between the managers
  prediction of employee preference and the
  employees report of their own preference was
  examined.

23
Results

• Additional Analysis
• As part of the survey, managers were asked to
  rate how well they knew employees on a 5-point
  likert scale (5very well, 1not at all).
• The correlation coefficients were divided into
  two groups
• those associated with a 4 or 5 on the scale
• (i.e., the known well group)
• those associated with a 1, 2, or 3 on the scale
• (i.e., the known less well group)

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Results

• Known well group
• M.18 (SD .54)
• Known less well group
• M.003 (SD .57)
• No significant differences were found between the
  known well and known less well groups
• t(24) .75, p .23 (one-tailed)
• Suggesting the variability in the correlation
  coefficients was NOT a function of how well
  managers reported that they knew employees

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Discussion

• Results suggest some managers are accurate at
  predicting employees most preferred item /
  activity for use in a performance improvement
  plan.
• Managers are generally less accurate when
  predicting items / activities that may be less
  preferred.

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Discussion

• These results are somewhat inconsistent with
  previous research conducted by Green et al.
  (1988)
• Found that staff opinions of student preferences
  did NOT coincide with the results of a preference
  assessment conducted with the students
• Results of this study suggest that managers can
  more easily identify what their employees might
  be willing to work for than can staff working
  with students in a human service setting

27
Discussion

• The degree to which managers reported they knew
  employees did not correlate with the extent to
  which they can predict what items / activities
  are preferred by their employees.
• Other variables (e.g., duration of employment,
  time employees spend with managers) might better
  predict the extent to which managers can predict
  what items / activities are preferred by
  employees.

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Discussion

• Practical implications
• Until additional research is conducted,
  consultants might be advised to conduct a formal
  preference assessment among employees if they
  wish to identify multiple preferred items /
  activities.
• If identification of a single, most preferred
  item / activity is the goal, then simply asking
  managers what individual employees prefer may be
  adequate.

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Discussion

• Future research?
• Limitation of current study
• Reinforcer assessment was not conducted
• Future research should utilize a reinforcer
  assessment to verify that items employees state
  they prefer do actually function as reinforcers.

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The Accuracy of Managerial Prediction of Employee
Preference

• David A. Wilder, Kristen Rost, and Meghan McMahon
• Florida Institute of Technology