Performance Management: Changing Behavior That Drives Organizational Effectiveness (part 23)

Tangible Reinforcers

by

Charles Lamson

When most people hear the concept of positive reinforcement, they usually think of money or something that money can buy. Social reinforcers (smiles, acceptance, praise, acclaim, attention from other people)compose the class of reinforcers that we rely on for most organizational improvement. However, even though tangible reinforcers are not often used they are an important part of one's reinforcement repertoire.

A tangible reinforcer is any economically valuable object or activity that is presented contingent on (based on, or after) a behavior, that results in an increase in the frequency of that behavior. A discrimination needs to be reiterated at this point. A tangible delivered contingent on some behavior is a reinforcer. A tangible delivered sometime after the performance is a reward. Tangibles are typically rewards rather than reinforcers. It is not often that you deliver some tangible during or immediately on completion of behavior. You might however deliver a cup of specialty coffee to someone who is working late to complete a project, or you might let someone leave work an hour early after they have calmed an angry customer and thus retained an important sale.

If the rewards are meaningful to the recipients and you deliver them appropriately, your presence will be paired with the tangible reinforcer. When repeated over time, this pairing strengthens the impact of your social reinforcement.

Tangibles are the kinds of reinforcers that first occur to people when they are introduced to the concept of reinforcement. Tangibles may range from a cup of coffee to a new car to substantial amounts of cash. In Mary Kay cosmetics, high performers earn the use of a pink Cadillac. In some organizations taking the team out for lunch is an effective reinforcer.

Tangibles are popular with sales management and have been used successfully for many years. Through increased sales performance, salespeople can earn tangibles ranging from small kitchen appliances to a set of golf clubs and trips to exotic vacation destinations.

Managers in non-sales organizations, however, have relatively little experience using tangibles. A growing number of businesses are learning that properly planned and executed tangible reinforcers can result in significant improvement in performance and morale. But if they are improperly chosen and delivered, they are worse than nothing.

Tangibles provide opportunities to celebrate. Every time someone earns a tangible, it provides an opportunity to relive the accomplishment. A common problem in using tangibles is that they are sometimes given without comment, sent in the mail with no explanation, or just mysteriously appear on a person's desk. When delivering a tangible reinforcer, always provide social reinforcement along with it.

Any tangible reinforcer that is visible at work or at home can serve as an antecedent for celebrations. If the tangible reinforcer is something you use outside the workplace, it can be the source of a lot of self-reinforcement because whenever you use it, you may be reminded of the circumstances under which you earned it.

Clothing or other items with the company logo are some of the more commonly used tangibles. T-shirts and hats have been particularly successful with many work groups. When the group designs the sayings for the T-shirts or the logo for the hats, these items become even more valuable. These types of items can be effective for all employees, regardless of job position, gender, or status. For your tangibles to be effective, they must be given only after desired performance occurs and must be something the person wants. In the end, only their impact on the behavior will determine whether or not they are reinforcers.

The best tangibles give the recipient a story to tell. If the tangible stands for an accomplishment, When asked "Where did you get that?" it gives the person an opportunity to recount the circumstances under which it was earned. The person might respond by saying "Let me tell you about it." He then begins to tell how his team set a new quality, production, or sales record. He gets to tell the details of how hard and carefully the team worked. He has an acceptable opportunity to brag - a celebration by another name.

The more enjoyment people have in receiving the tangible reinforcer, or the harder they had to work for it, the more reinforcing it will be to tell someone about it. Whether a television set or a coffee mug, much of the future reinforcing value of the tangible will be not in the monetary value, but in what the person can say about it.

Although tangibles are not always used in performance improving projects, they should always be considered. A mix of tangible and social reinforcement is the best way to improve performance. Even though there is  no clear data on just what the ratio should be, the mix should heavily favor reinforcers, probably by a ratio of more than 20 to 1.

*SOURCE: PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: CHANGING BEHAVIOR THAT DRIVES ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS, 4TH ED., 2004, AUBREY C. DANIELS & JAMES E. DANIELS, PGS. 205-207*

end