PS392 Unit 5 Feedback and Motivation Paper Example

"You Built That Bale": A PS392 Unit 5 Feedback and Motivation Paper

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

PS392: Attitudes and Motivation in the Workplace

Unit 5 Feedback and Motivation Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the recycling plant, the sorters and every figure are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.

The Rejected Bale

In May, the paper mill sent back a fiber bale from our Tucson plant with a note: too much plastic film. Rejected bales cost us the freight both ways and a penalty, so they get attention. The swing shift lead traced the bale to a two-hour window and spoke to the two sorters who had been on the final fiber station during it. To each of them, separately, he said nearly the same thing: "You built that bale. The mill sent it back. I need you to see the film."

Luz, who had been sorting for three years, came to him the next night and asked to stand beside the day shift's best fiber sorter for an hour to watch how she scanned the belt. Andre, four months on the job, said nothing, stood farther from the lead at the huddle and called in sick twice that week. His supervisor's comment was meant to motivate him. For Andre, it did the opposite.

Why Feedback Lands Differently

Ilgen et al. (1979) laid out a model that still organizes much of this research. In their account, what a person does with feedback depends on whether they perceive it accurately, whether they accept it as true, whether they want to respond and whether they actually do. Each step can fail. The source matters, especially whether the person giving feedback is seen as credible and well intentioned, and so does the message, including how specific and how timely it is.

Both sorters heard the comment accurately. The difference came at acceptance and desire to respond. Luz accepted that the bale had too much film and wanted to fix it. Andre, as he told me later, heard something else: that the lead had already decided he was the problem and was building a case.

What the Employee Thinks the Supervisor Wants

Xing et al. (2023) asked why some employees respond well to negative feedback while others respond poorly. In two studies, one of 370 American employees and one of 302 hospital nurses in China, they found that the answer depended on what motive the employee read into the feedback and on the employee's core self-evaluation, a broad sense of one's own worth and capability. Employees high in core self-evaluation tended to read negative feedback as aimed at performance, given because the supervisor wanted the work done well. That reading went with greater motivation to learn. Employees low in core self-evaluation tended to read the same kind of feedback as serving the supervisor's own interests, such as covering himself or asserting control, and that reading went with less motivation to learn, which in turn predicted weaker gains in learning.

The lead gave one message; Luz heard a request for better bales and Andre heard a verdict.

The fit with our case was close. Luz, confident in her skills after three years, assumed the lead cared about the bale. Andre, still unsure he could do the job, assumed the lead cared about blame. Neither was being unreasonable given what each already believed about themselves.

The Feedback Environment

A single comment also lands inside a larger climate. Steelman et al. (2004) developed a scale to measure the feedback environment, the everyday conditions under which feedback is given and received. Their dimensions include the credibility of the source, the quality of the feedback, how it is delivered, how available the supervisor is, whether favorable as well as unfavorable feedback is given and whether the supervisor encourages people to seek it out.

On swing shift, most of those dimensions were weak. The shift had had three leads in eighteen months, so credibility was low. Feedback was almost entirely negative, delivered when a bale came back. The lead was hard to find on the floor because he also covered the baler. Nobody asked for feedback, because asking felt like volunteering for criticism. In that climate, a new sorter with little confidence had every reason to read a blunt comment as hostile.

What I Learned From Talking With Andre

I met Andre after his second sick day. He said he liked the work more than his last job and wanted to stay, but he was sure he would be fired after the bale. Nobody had told him that rejected bales happen a few times a month, that the mill's limit is strict, or that the lead had spoken to Luz too. He had also never been told when he was doing well; the only feedback he had received in four months was about that bale. Once he learned those things, he relaxed visibly.

What We Changed on Swing Shift

The changes focused on the parts of the feedback process our case showed were failing.

First, intent. Leads now open any correction with the reason, stated as the bale or the mill's limit, and with what normal looks like. "Two or three bales a month come back plantwide; this one had film. Here is what to watch for." That framing makes the performance motive explicit for sorters who would not assume it.

Second, balance. The daily contamination figure on the whiteboard gives positive feedback on good days, and leads are asked to name at least one specific thing a sorter did well during each shift.

Third, availability. A trained sorter now covers the baler for the first hour of swing shift so the lead can walk the line when new sorters most need help.

Fourth, confidence building for new hires. Xing and colleagues' findings suggest that people low in core self-evaluation are most at risk of reading criticism as hostile. New sorters now start on the container line, where mistakes are easier to see, and get a short weekly check-in during their first ninety days that covers what they are doing well and one thing to work on.

Fifth, seeking feedback. At the start-of-shift huddle, the lead asks who wants a second set of eyes on their station that night. At first nobody volunteered. By the third week, two or three people did most nights.

Results

Over the next two months, swing shift's rejected bales dropped from four in May to one in July. Andre asked to shadow the day shift's best fiber sorter, the same request Luz had made, and has not missed a shift since. In the June pulse survey, swing shift's rating of supervision rose from 2.6 to 3.2. Two months on one shift proves little, yet every number moved the way the research predicted.

Limits

I cannot measure core self-evaluation for every sorter, and I would not want leads guessing at it. The practical lesson is to deliver negative feedback in a way that makes its purpose clear to everyone, rather than to sort people into types. Also, swing shift changed leads again in June, and the new lead was trained in the approach from the start, so some improvement may reflect the person as much as the method.

Conclusion

The same criticism helped one sorter and hurt another. Ilgen, Fisher and Taylor's model shows where feedback can fail, Xing and colleagues explain why employees with less confidence read criticism as self-serving, and Steelman, Levy and Snell's dimensions show how swing shift's climate made that reading likely. Stating the reason for every correction, balancing criticism with recognition and making the lead available changed both the bale count and the crew's view of supervision.

References

Ilgen, D. R., Fisher, C. D., & Taylor, M. S. (1979). Consequences of individual feedback on behavior in organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 64(4), 349-371. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.64.4.349

Steelman, L. A., Levy, P. E., & Snell, A. F. (2004). The Feedback Environment Scale: Construct definition, measurement, and validation. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 64(1), 165-184. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164403258440

Xing, L., Sun, J.-M., Jepsen, D., & Zhang, Y. (2023). Supervisor negative feedback and employee motivation to learn: An attribution perspective. Human Relations, 76(2), 310-340. https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267211038514