TRAINING DESIGNED TO CHANGE BEHAVIOR AND ATTITUDES
1
The city of Palm Desert, California, decided to provide training to improve employees’ attitudes toward their work and to provide them with the skills to be more effective on the job. The two-day seminar involved a number of teaching methods, including a lecture, films, roleplays, and group interaction. Among the topics covered were conflict control, listening, communicating, telephone etiquette, body language, delegation, and taking orders. Throughout the two days, the value of teamwork, creativity, and rational decision making was stressed and integrated into the training.
Before the training was instituted, all 55 nonmanagement employees completed a paperand-pencil questionnaire to measure both their attitudes toward the job and their perception of their job behaviors. Supervisors also completed a questionnaire assessing each of their employees. All 55 employees were told that they would be receiving the same two-day seminar. The first set of 34 employees was chosen at random.
The 21 employees who did not take the training immediately became a comparison group for evaluating the training. While the first group of employees was sent to the training, the others were pulled off the job, ostensibly to receive training, but they simply took part in exercises not related to any training. Thus, both groups were treated similarly in every way except for the training. Both groups completed attitude surveys immediately after the trained group finished training. Six months later, both groups completed self-report surveys to measure changes in their job behavior. Their supervisors also were asked to complete a similar behavior measure at the six-month mark.
The data provided some revealing information. For the trained group, no changes in attitude or behavior were indicated, either by the self-report or by supervisor-reported surveys. This result was also true (but expected) for the group not trained.