Exam 6: Applied Performance Practices

Before meeting a new client, a salesperson visualizes the experience of meeting the person and effectively answering some of the challenging questions the client might ask.This activity is an example of:

Job enlargement primarily changes which of the following?

A video journalist is someone who performs all jobs previously done by a traditional news team - from operating the camera to reporting the story.Thus, a video journalist is an example of job enlargement and job enrichment.

ABC Ltd.has a large secretarial pool on the third floor of company headquarters where professional and lower-level managers have their reports and other documents word-processed.The tasks are received by the secretarial pool coordinator and assigned randomly (on an availability basis) to secretaries in the pool.The secretaries often do not know the managers or professionals for whom the word-processing assignment is being completed.They rarely find out about the quality of their work because revisions are often sent to other secretaries in the pool due to the rotating work assignment system.Some assignments involve simple word-processing while others require complex formatting using more sophisticated word-processing software.Some secretaries don't mind working in the pool, but most are there because it represents the entry-level secretarial position.They resent the lack of control over work assignments and look forward to being transferred to other secretarial jobs in the firm where there is more freedom to schedule their own work activities.Turnover in the pool is much higher than for other support staff at ABC Ltd.Explain what job design strategy would you recommend to improve employee effectiveness in ABC's secretarial pool and why you would choose this strategy.

According to the Job Characteristics Model, experienced meaningfulness increases with the level of job feedback.

Research suggests that men and women differ in their attitudes towards money.

Steelweld, a car parts manufacturer, pays employees a higher hourly rate as they learn to master more parts of the work process.Employees earn $10 per hour when they are hired and they can earn up to $20 per hour if they master all 12 work units in the production process.Steelweld is applying which of these reward systems?

Gainsharing plans apply to production jobs, not to services such as medical operations.

Self-leadership provides a different way of thinking about motivating employees.Identify and fully describe three of the elements of the self-leadership model and briefly explain how self-leadership differs from other applied motivation practices.

The chief executive of a mid-sized manufacturing company has hired you to design the work site and any other conditions necessary for employees to feel more empowered.Briefly define empowerment and describe three important conditions you would ensure existed in this plant to improve empowerment among production employees.

People with a high power distance give money a low priority in their lives.

Job status-based rewards:

A cable TV company redesigned jobs so that one employee interacts directly with customers, connects and disconnects their cable service, installs their special services and collects overdue accounts in an assigned area.Previously, each task was performed by a different person and the customer interacted only with someone at head office.This change is an example of:

Executive dining rooms represent a form of job status reward.

In self-leadership, constructive thought patterns include:

Self-leadership includes the practice of self-reinforcement.

Which of the following is NOT explicitly identified as a component of self-leadership?

Gainsharing and share-ownership reward plans create an "ownership culture" that is good for owners, but bad for employees.

The more employees see a direct connection between their daily actions and a reward, the more they are motivated to improve performance.

One element of self-leadership involves keeping track of our progress toward goals.