Org Behaviour

Hausser Food Products Company

Question 1A:

After completing the readings from Aubrey Daniels, “Bringing out the Best in People”, we learn that people do what they do because of the consequences they experience following their actions. Therefore, it is helpful to set the stage for the Hausser Food Products (HFP) to understand the actions of their employees. Changing conditions in recent years has caused HFP to have diminishing sales and a large drop in earnings. The lack of past competition had allowed HFP to create an environment rich in “negative reinforcement”, but senior management had not seen the consequences of their actions until recent years.

HFP Executives did not receive innovative ideas from their employees due to the ineffective use of positive reinforcement. The small $500 bonus for offering suggestions had a negative perception among their employees. According to Alby Siegal after seeing their ideas make hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit for the company; $500 was viewed as minimal compensation for the individual. Brenda Cooper also failed to exercise the Management-Related Reinforcement (Positive Reinforcement) for her Florida District Manager and Sales Team. She lacked the ability to give her sales team tangible positive reinforcement. This was seen in Jay Boyer not revealing his newly discovered market of serving the geriatric population. This in turn led to Jay negatively reinforcing the behaviors of his own sales team by capping their performance. Jay did not encourage nor support the discretionary effort of anyone on his team to exceed their annual sales goals. Once sales targets were achieved, senior management would then raise goals the following year which would then led to unattainable results for the individual districts representatives. With no plan in place to celebrate individual performance, achievement of district goals, or compensation for performance over target; the sales team found it easier to work less hours and...