Controlling Improvement

The purpose of training an employee is to increase profit through by controlling environmental factors that support improvement in the employee's work performance. Unfortunately, the word control often carries a negative connotation, encouraging us to place a more attractive face on its underlying purpose. Thus, instead of saying that we are controlling our employees, we are motivating, educating, training, mentoring and empowering them to willingly and conscientiously improve their performance. Regardless of the word we use to describe the methods and motivation for employee improvement, the process invariably involves a change in some aspect of employees' work environments. This of course is the behavioral perspective, whereby we control employee performance through positive environmental manipulation.

We often refer to someone controlling another when coercive or unpleasant methods are used. However, control need not be cast in such negative light. Control refers only to the extent that some aspect of the environment influences a behavioral outcome. These factors are to be found in the work environment and affect our choice of action. That is, we continually balance our personal perspective of being in control, with the unavoidable result that our choice of action is directly influenced by a wide range of environmental factors, such as friends, family, co-workers, supervisors, etc. While we might be aware of some of the factors that control our decisions. While we cannot meaningfully evaluate all of the alternatives and their consequences prior to our actions, these myriad environmental factors due control our actions. We might be very aware of our sense of truth, but it is the consequence of behavior that provides the greatest influence and control over our actions.

We can never be totally aware of all of the factors that influence our actions. However, we can directly increase our efforts to provide new sources of control over employee behavior that positively impacts profitability. That is, the purpose of control in the business setting is to provide employees the means and motivation to increase their performance in measurable ways that benefits the corporation. Sometimes employees possess the factors that can control their positive influence toward the company. For example, with regard to customer service, some employees possess the ability to treat unfriendly customers with sufficient friendliness to improve the outcome. Therefore, we can promote existing behavior (friendly customer service) in a new situation (unfriendly customer) as "new behavior." When we have sufficiently controlled employees' educational and work experiences, we enable our employees to more reliably choose behavior that positively enhances their personal achievement as productivity for the company.