Assignment 1: LASA 2—Prevention Strategies

Treatment programs cannot always be 100% effective, and many substance abusers relapse into drug abuse after days, months, or even years of sobriety. With the marginal success of treatment programs, it is even more important that people never start using drugs. As such, prevention strategies are of utmost importance.

Review the case study. Using your module readings and the Argosy University online library resources, research methods of increasing awareness about substance abuse and dependence.

Develop a PowerPoint presentation including the following:

· Identify and describe two prevention strategies.

· Explain ways of determining whether loved ones have a problem with drugs using the current DSM characteristics of substance use disorders.

· Address the effectiveness of current treatment strategies in the United States.

· Explain polypharmacology

· Address the possible treatment options and treatment difficulties for someone who is dependent on two substances.

Develop an 8–10-slide presentation (complete with speakers notes) in PowerPoint format. Apply APA standards to citation of sources. Be sure to include a title slide and a list of references. Use the following file naming convention: LastnameFirstInitial_M5_A1.ppt. By Monday, March 23, 2015, deliver your assignment to the M5: Assignment 1 Dropbox.

Nordstrom

Nordstrom’s Case Study

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Class

Date

Professor

Nordstrom’s Case Study

The company Nordstrom’s takes an interesting approach to driving competition amongst their employees and ensuring greater accountability. Nordstrom’s approach to employee performance is to guide their employees in providing consumers with extraordinary service in order to increase the company’s profitability. In order to inspire employees to treat all customers with respect and provide quality service, Nordstrom measures employee performance by displaying the performance of all employees in a public forum for other employees to see. The goal of this approach is to create tension amongst employees resulting in competitiveness which in turn results in greater sales.

When employees meet the performance goals of Nordstrom they will be compensated through different rewards and incentives (Specter, 1999). While this approach is not commonly used it does create many benefits for Nordstrom. Through the open environment employees can learn what their fellow employees are achieving on the sales floor and adjust their behavior to also increase their sales. This type of approach makes it clear which employees are doing a good job and what employees need to improve their work performance. The business can use this information to make decisions about career opportunities for employees or to decide which employees may need further training.

Twice a month, Nordstrom releases sales figures and rewards top-performing employees. The goal of this is to encourage employees to improve their productivity. The top earners at Nordstrom are rewarded when they reach these goals by the company. This type of reinforcement schedule is designed to ensure employees do not become complacent but continue to strive for excellence in service every day. This is done with a schedule of reinforcement.

A schedule of reinforcement is a protocol or set of rules that a teacher will follow when delivering reinforcers (Miltenberger, 2008). The reinforcement schedule is an aspect of operant conditioning where the goal is learning. The reinforcement schedule is designed to control behavior by reinforcing the behavior expected by the company (Schlinger et al, 2008). In the case of Nordstrom this schedule of reinforcement is designed to increase quality of service and more importantly sales. At Nordstrom using the reinforcement schedule the employee learns the expectations of the company and begins to adjust their behavior based on the requirements of Nordstrom. The every two week schedule gives the employee an opportunity to increase their value in the two week period but it also keep employees competitive and striving to do their best.

Top sellers at Nordstrom are rewarded for their efforts. Employees at Nordstrom receive 6.75 percent commission for all of their sales plus competitive salaries. Top performers at Nordstrom can make six figure salaries when they do a good job producing sales. This approach has resulted in the company making it through the economic crisis to currently thriving in the market. Once an employee reaches the one million dollar sales mark they will receive a one percent increase in the commission they receive. With this employee performance structure the employee benefits when they are able to make good sales.

My previous employer was also interested in top performers and used a similar approach but employees sales where generated on a daily basis instead of a biweekly basis. Employees were only rewarded, however, on a quarterly basis. The daily reminder was designed to ensure employees were aware of their sales position on the top performer board every single day. This constant reminder was designed to give the employee the incentive to improve sales. While the sales generated did not reach the same as Nordstrom employees also received small weekly benefits, such as movie passes or gift certificates in order to encourage their increased sales performance.

References

Miltenberger, R. (2008). Behaviour Modification. Belmont, CA. Wadsworth Publishing.

Schlinger, H., Derenne, A. & Baron, A. (2008). What 50 Years of Research Tell Us About

Pausing Under Ratio Schedules of Reinforcement. Behavior Analysis, 31(1): 39-60

Specter. R. (1999). The Nordstrom Way: Inside Americas Number One Customer Service

company. Retrieved September 17, 2014 from http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/155473/file-375