Individual Skill Building: Exercising Positive Control

During my short, two year career in vaccine production, I was on the receiving end of a supervisor exercising positive control. I was, at the time, an employee who was performing at an unacceptable level in the organization. First, a little background of the company and circumstances involved: the company was an international animal health company. At the location I worked at lies the main administrative office, as well as a vaccine production facility and the Research and Development lab. I was employed in the production facility, as a lab tech first in the freeze drying department, where we produced dog, cat, horse, and poultry vaccines, then later in the emulsion vaccine department, where we produced poultry vaccines.

Being a vaccine production facility, it ran like a (very clean) factory, and there were strict rules on when shifts start and stop, and there were likewise consequences to repeated tardiness, including verbal and written warnings. After two unrecorded verbal warnings, on the third instance of unacceptable behavior, a written warning would be issued, and being written and kept under file, this could haunt you during later points (potential raises and promotions) in your career.

This was my first "real" job out of college after getting my BS in biology, and I was not yet accustomed to the early work hours involved, as well as the variable nature of the work times at this production facility. At some points I would report to work at 7am one day, then the following day have to be there by 5am, meaning I had to be out of bed by 3:30am. Not surprisingly, this was a drastic change from my sleeping habits during college, and while it is very possible to work these hours, for me, it was also very possible to sleep through my alarm on several occasions. These are all, however, just excuses for my unacceptable behavior, which needed to be addressed.

Ineffective method

During my time in the freeze drying department, I was late to work by about 20 - 25 minutes (7 minutes late was considered the upper threshold) and came in to work relatively unnoticed, but knew that my supervisor would definitely see my lateness when he went to review timecards for the week. I choose not to mention it to him and see what happened, figuring that he would approach me when he noticed and give me a verbal warning. This never happened, meaning that he either changed my time to reflect that I was on time, told his superior that he gave me a verbal warning, or his superior also chose to ignore the problem.

This supervisor has chosen to employ problem avoidance as a solution to my tardiness. He has ignored the problem and failed to exercise control over a low performer, reinforcing my poor performance, and encouraging others to act in a similar way due to a lack of perceived consequences (exploiters). This also discourages others who arrive to work on time every day, the high performers, who feel there are no consequences for lateness, and in turn, no rewards for punctuality (victims).

Effective method

After about 9 months at this job, another lab tech position in the emulsions department opened up, and it was decided by management that I would be the best candidate to make the transfer over, since there was more room for upward growth in the new area. About two months after the transfer, I was late to work again, not much of a surprise after the complete lack of consequences for my previous behavior. My new supervisor took me into his office, and acknowledging the problem, began by asking me some questions, giving me a chance to explain myself and to make sure there were no serious problems or underlying issues causing my lateness, showing that he was concerned about me. After I explained that it was really just me oversleeping that day, he was understanding about the problem, acknowledging that everyone makes a mistake every now and again, and told me not to let it happen again. Using a low amount of control, as he did, was a reasonable response to a one time offense, because, this was a short-term problem (one occurrence) that was also an individual problem.

Although I did not enjoy being late and having to explain myself to my boss, I managed to show up for work late again, and even worse, it was within one month of the previous occurrence. My supervisor, seeing this as the beginning of a trend, knew that it was time for counseling, to exercise positive control and guide me perform at an acceptable level. As we sat down in his office, he began with the same questions and concern as before, making sure that he was not jumping to conclusions or overlooking a serious problem that could have caused my behavior. This time, however, we spoke more in-depth about the consequences of my actions if they continue. He explained to me that after the third occurrence, the event would go "on the record" as a written warning, and that this recorded incident could possibly hinder my future potential for raises and promotions. He then further explained that he was looking to me to be his future replacement when he moved up within the company, that I was an excellent performer outside of this problem, and that he would "hate to see something stupid like this" be the reason that I don't excel at the company in the coming years. As he tied this incident directly to my future at the company, and at the same time praising my other performance outside of this issue, I could see how important it was that I change my behavior immediately. We discussed what I would do to actively improve my behavior, in which I vowed to go straight to the store after work and buy a second alarm clock, and, as he was satisfied with my solution, the discussion was over. After this, I was not late again.

In this instance, the supervisor has acknowledged the problem persists and initiated counseling to address this. A higher amount of control was used here than before, because as this goes from one occurrence of an individual problem to multiple occurrences in a short time frame, the problem moves from short-term towards long-term. In addition, by acknowledging and issuing verbal warnings, the behavior was discouraged by me (punitive fairness) as well as the other members of the department if they choose to act in the same way. At the same time it was explained to me that my continuing high performance would be rewarded in the future (positive fairness) as long as this unacceptable behavior ceased immediately, aligning personal goals (promotions and raises) with corporate (showing up on time to manufacture vaccines).

The above examples of two different supervisors with different approaches to the same problem, exemplifies the importance and effectiveness of applying the appropriate amount of control to the right people. By using varying degrees of control as the specific situation warrants, the appropriate behaviors will be encouraged, while unacceptable performance will be discouraged, all in a positive light, that highlights goal congruence between the individual and the organization.