Supervisory Personnel Research Articles

The development of a hypermedia training system for a water treatment plant

The Bureau of Pollution Control for the city of Atlanta, GA is responsible for four water pollution control plants. A hypermedia training system is being developed that is intended to be used by supervisory, operational, and maintenance personnel who control the water treatment facilities at the plants. The primary objective of this research effort is to develop an effective combination of text, figures, photographs, computer animations, and live video connected via hypertext links that motivates and communicates with the plant personnel. The methodology used to accomplish this goal is iterative design, which allows constant feedback from potential users of the system and emerging technologies and media to be gradually incorporated into the system. The development of a hypermedia training and reference system presents many problems in the successful integration of technology, information, and personnel. To support these needs, an audience description was formulated in order to understand the user characteristics. The basis of the information content of the system was obtained from an operations manual developed by plant management. Photographs, figures, and animations have been added to augment the text. An implementation schedule featuring iterative design with frequent behavioral evaluations was used to refine the content and incorporate appropriate visual aids. Alternative user interfaces, one based on the original manual and another based on a flow diagram of the processes at the plant, have been proposed to meet the needs of both inexperienced and experienced employees. The methodology for implementing the system and experiences in implementing it are discussed. The initial development of a text-based system was driven by the results of behavioral evaluations. Future developments will be based on behavioral evaluations and the use of visual technologies.

Role of Employee Coping and Performance in Voluntary Employee Withdrawal: A Research Refinement and Elaboration

The present study examined growth coping, work performance, work satisfaction and organizational tenure as predictors of voluntary organizational turnover for 93 human services supervisory personnel. This study represents a further theoretical development and empirical test of the role played by employee growth coping on whether an employee stays (No Turnover) or leaves (Turnover) their organization. Additionally, clarification of the relationship between work performance and withdrawal is provided. Future research directions are introduced.

Role of employee coping and performance in voluntary employee withdrawal: A research refinement and elaboration

The present study examined growth coping, work performance, work satisfaction and organizational tenure as predictors of voluntary organizational turnover for 93 human services supervisory personnel. This study represents a further theoretical development and empirical test of the role played by employee growth coping on whether an employee stays (No Turnover) or leaves (Turnover) their organization. Additionally, clarification of the relationship between work performance and withdrawal is provided. Future research directions are introduced.

Supervisory hotel employee perceptions of management careers and professional development requirements

Attracting and developing top flight management personnel for hotel companies is a continuing challenge. In many instances, such organizations fail to capitalize on the benefits of drawing such management recruits from within the ranks of their existing supervisory staff. This resource represents a potentially valuable source of condidates with a solid appreciation of how the company operates. However, this approach to management staffing is not without its own particular barriers. While many supervisory staff may have interest in management positions, they frequently are hesitant about making such career shifts. This hesitancy may be related to such factors as limited awareness of management opportunities and job requirements; perceived inability to perform such work; actual qualitative and technical characteristics of the job; and a lack of encouragement from within the organization. This paper provides insights into some of the critical factors necessary for attracting and developing supervisors for management positions. This is accomplished by surveying hotel supervisors with respect to their perceptions of management work in the hotel industry. By identifying these perspectives, the report suggests how hotel organizations may be able to modify their current in-house management recruiting systems so as to attract and nurture top flight supervisory personnel for management careers.

Eighth Latin American Labor History Conference

Sponsored by Latin American studies programs of Yale and University of Connecticut, conference on Women and Labor in Latin America ex amined gender dynamics of production and reproduction. The presenta tions, given April 17-18, 1987, touched on a broad spectrum of topics, includ ing women and factory labor, sexual politics of rural social conflict, tensions of life among nineteenth-century domestic servants, and women's role in contemporary trade unionism. Dealing with employer visions of industrial employee, Barba ra Weinstein explored contradictions inherent in annual industrialist sponsored Operario Padr?o (Ideal Worker) campaigns conducted in S?o Paulo, Brazil between 1964 and 1986. Conducted by Social Service of In dustry (SESI), this factory, state, and national-level competition was designed to celebrate individual-worker achievement and foster a mobility myth within factory, and was referred to as Operario Ladr?o (Worker Thief) or Operario Patr?o (Worker Boss) contest by union activists. Only three of 55 winners examined by Weinstein were women, despite an industrial work force that was one-quarter female. Susan Besse of City University of New York emphasized that male underlying SESI contest clearly implied a larger employer vision of women's proper role. Discussing stereotyped vision of women's place ad vanced by Labor Ministry in 1930s (efficiency, economy, and Taylor ism in kitchen), she suggested ways to explore differential normative standards of gender that characterized SESI and male factory workers who voted in these contests. Steven Stein (University of Miami) welcomed Wein stein's use of interviews and work histories to examine human-level contra dictions of these ideal workers, who tended on whole to be male super visory personnel. In Women and Popular Politics in Postwar S?o Paulo, Brazil, John French (Utah State University) explored women's sociopolitical participation in industrial ABC region of Greater S?o Paulo, 1945-47. Dealing with a pe riod of political upsurge and mass strikes, he observed that the greater ex tent, depth, and intensity of working-class mobilization, greater in volvement and visibility of working-class women, including both housewives and women workers. Such abnormal times, he continued, help to reveal

Education and Training Relating to Hazardous Wastes in Germany

The aim of a study undertaken in Germany was to provide a comprehensive picture and a comparative analysis of existing and planned education and training facilities in relation to hazardous wastes, and to identify educational and training needs of personnel working at hazardous waste facilities or involved in the transportation of hazardous wastes. The educational level of management and supervisory personnel is high. Most operatives have completed little more than basic schooling and have not received any prior training in the handling of hazardous wastes. Training provision varies considerably between works. A high proportion of training is undertaken in-house by training-on-the-job. The educational background of most drivers of hazardous wastes (road transport) is limited to basic school education. A special certificate is necessary for drivers. Most training relates to hazardous substances in general and there is only little training relating to the specific problems of hazardous wastes.

Prevention of occupational contact dermatitis

Contact dermatitis is the most frequent type of occupational skin disease. Although prevention of contact dermatitis in the workplace should ideally be accomplished through total elimination of cutaneous exposure to hazardous substances, this is often not feasible. Therefore eight basic elements of a multidimensional approach to prevention have been identified. These elements include recognition of potential cutaneous irritants and allergens, engineering controls or chemical substitution to prevent skin exposure, personal protection with appropriate clothing or barrier creams, personal and environmental hygiene, regulation of potential allergens and irritants within the workplace, educational efforts to promote awareness of potential allergens and irritants, motivational techniques to promote safe work conditions and practices, and preemployment and periodic health screening. A comprehensive prevention program based on this multidimensional approach requires the cooperative efforts of employees, employers, engineers, chemists, industrial hygienists, safety and supervisory personnel, union representatives, governmental agencies, and occupational health practitioners.

A Microcomputer-Based Program for the Interpretation and Reporting of Rapid Toxicology Screens

Our laboratory recently published a new method for rapid toxicology screening for both the routine and emergency care of patients. We have also developed a microcomputer- based interpretive reporting program based on a commercially available database management system. Significant features of the program include extemalization of interpretive logic, logical component test sequencing, and the ability to selectively superimpose pathologist intervention. All data concerning any toxicology screen are available for review, including raw delta absorbances, final calculated results, and system parameters in place at the time a screen was performed. These features are typically not available with commercial turnkey laboratory systems. Our current configuration allows for the on-line storage of approximately 12,000 toxicology screens at one time. Additionally, the system is constructed in such a way to allow supervisory and technical personnel to maintain, troubleshoot, and modify the system without the need for programmer intervention.

Pharmacotherapy Part IV. The Future of Specialization and Certification in Pharmacy

THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHARMACY SPECIALTIES is not completed with nuclear pharmacy, clinical nutrition, and pharmacotherapy. There will be two prominent pressures coming to the forefront. One already exists within pharmacotherapy: the pressure to fractionate pharmacotherapy into pediatrics, geriatrics, oncology, infectious diseases, adult medicine, family medicine, and so forth. The other pressure will be the dissatisfaction of the large number of pharmacists who will not be eligible for specialty status in the three current specialties. A similar dissatisfaction occurred in medicine among the thousands of general practitioners who did not qualify to be internists or pediatricians. This disenfranchisement resulted in the creation of the family medicine specialty, now the largest of medical specialties. Professional organization aspirations and politics will play a key role in the eventual specialty lineup. With the pharmacotherapy specialty now in the hands of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, the American Society of Hospital Pharmacists (ASHP) will be even more anxious to see narrow clinical specialties approved, i.e., those it can reasonably sponsor. The ASHP has a difficult course ahead. The Board of Pharmaceutical Specialties (BPS) has already declared that specialties will not be based on administrative functions or location of practice. This apparently leaves out hospital pharmacy directors and supervisory personnel and the thousands of pharmacists working in drug-distribution services and lower-level clinical activities. The old camaraderie within hospital pharmacy in the pre-1975 era has eroded and will be even more stressed when most practitioners are still left out of a few new specialties to come. This disparity has been widened by the employment of thousands of entry-level pharmacists (those with B.S. or Pharm.D. degrees with no residency) to perform largely technical and low supervisory functions in drug-distribution control. There is no clear way out of this without a quick and thorough dedication to meaningful education and career development for pharmacy technicians. As long as high school graduates are hired one day and put in the sterile compounding service the next, the university education of pharmacists will be wasted and professional growth thwarted. The American Pharmaceutical Association (APhA), with some 50 000 members, curiously has no strategic plan to encourage specialization. Its flagship group, the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences, was badly torpedoed by the new American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists in 1986. The APhA is in a struggle with NARD for community pharmacy, has lost hospital pharmacy, and never had clinical pharmacy. With thought to this confused background, I will speculate liberally on the future of specialties and certification in pharmacy. My thoughts are not constrained by the current policies of the BPS, organizations' status quo, or educational shortcomings; this analysis is concerned only with where we could go, not exactly how we can get there. These are my assumptions about the future of specialization in pharmacy: 1. Practice specialties will be built upon the Pharm.D. degree as the educational base (this can be entrylevel Pharm.D., or Pharm.D. after B.S. in pharmacy). 2. By implication above, new B.S.-degree pharmacists have no specialization future unless they enter a Pharm.D. program or recognized graduate program in the specialty area, i.e., M.S. program in nuclear pharmacy. The five-year B.S. could be reduced to four years to train pharmacists to function as drugcontrol supervisors. These graduates could not be heads of institutional or clinical services, but would have to report to a pharmacist with the Pharm.D. degree or other certified specialist. 3. M.S. programs would still be feasible, but hospital pharmacy and other practice-oriented programs would be only for pharmacists holding the entry Pharm.D. degree. 4. Current practitioners with B.S. degrees will be needed to do what they now do in the transition period of several decades.

The impact of a didactic session on the success of feline endotracheal intubation by paramedics

Clinical reports of endotracheal (ET) intubation of infants by paramedics suggest suboptimal success rates. Methods to improve the performance of paramedics in ET intubation should be explored. The small, anesthetized cat may be utilized to evaluate infant ET intubation performance. By determining success rates and complications of ET intubation in the cat model, analysis of the current skills and the impact of a short didactic session is described. Unprepared paramedics (n = 36) were randomized to an educational (experimental) or control group. Supervisory personnel evaluated ET tube placement and complications. There was no significant difference in the percent of successfully intubated cats, 67% and 57%, respectively, between experimental and control groups. Fifteen percent of successful ET intubations exceeded 30 seconds of intubation time. The experimental group chose appropriate equipment more frequently. Serious complications occurred in 50% of attempted intubations. There was a poor correlation between performance and measures of paramedic experience. Development of educational methods is required to improve infant ET intubation success and reduce complications.

A Validation of Ebel's Method for Performance Standard Setting through its Application with Comparison Approaches to a Selected Criterion-Referenced Test

This paper seeks to describe the research and development into performance standard setting processes used by the U.S. Navy's Strategic Weapon System Training Program for developing Criterion-Referenced System Achievement Tests (C-R SAT) for selected Naval Enlisted Classifications (NECs) or job titles in the Strategic Weapon System (SWS). The design of the C-R SAT involves identification of essential skills and knowledge for each NEC. This process entails planned workshops involving selected senior fleet and supervisory personnel drawn from the NEC. Following this test development process each C-R SAT is then subjected to a performance standard setting process. As all performance standard setting methodologies are subjective, the decision was made to validate the Ebel process and its outputs. Two alternative performance standard setting methodologies were applied to data generated from the two versions (watch stander and supervisor) of a recently administered TRIDENT Technician C-R SAT.

The impact of a didactic session on the success of feline endotracheal intubation by paramedics

Clinical reports of endotracheal (ET) intubation of infants by paramedics suggest suboptimal success rates. Methods to improve the performance of paramedics in ET intubation should be explored. The small, anesthetized cat may be utilized to evaluate infant ET intubation performance. By determining success rates and complications of ET intubation in the cat model, analysis of the current skills and the impact of a short didactic session is described. Unprepared paramedics (n = 36) were randomized to an educational (experimental) or control group. Supervisory personnel evaluated ET tube placement and complications. There was no significant difference in the percent of successfully intubated cats, 67% and 57%, respectively, between experimental and control groups. Fifteen percent of successful ET intubations exceeded 30 seconds of intubation time. The experimental group chose appropriate equipment more frequently. Serious complications occurred in 50% of attempted intubations. There was a poor correlation between performance and measures of paramedic experience. Development of educational methods is required to improve infant ET intubation success and reduce complications.

Chapter Seven: Celebration

In Chapter One we brought you through the doors into the world of the nursing home. In Chapters Two and Three we faced head-on some of the frustrations and anxieties this experience can be for many people. Part II of the book explored the personal and professional worlds of nursing assistants, supervisory personnel, administrators, and those we chose to call the underground. The intent has been to bring the reader through the initial horror of the nursing home and into its humanness. While special moments have been illustrated from time to time, we now wish to bring to the surface this humanness which struggles to be seen and experienced. The many players in this drama have their special problems with which to deal, but it is undeniable that the human spirit is present in nursing homes. This chapter celebrates the humanness in these settings.

Improving the exclusionary rule: A remedial education model

This article reviews the United States Supreme Court decisions on the rationale for the exclusionary rule and numerous law review articles suggesting changes in the rule. A new model is proposed to dovetail with the rule. The courts would participate in developing a compendium of rules and regulations for officers to follow in order to protect constitutional rights. Evidence would continue to be excluded if it were illegally seized in a bad faith. All officers who violate constitutional rights would be subject to remedial education. Supervisory officers and training personnel would also be responsible for the violations committed by line officers. Violations of constitutional rights would be considered when promotions and other personnel decisions are made. Lastly, the victim would be compensated by the governmental agency employing the offending officer with the agency seeking reimbursement from the employee.

Personnel exposure to diazinon in a supervised pest eradication program.

Dermal and respiratory exposure was measured for 15 workers applying a granular diazinon pesticide formulation, using equipment more typical of residential home owner use than large scale or agricultural operations. Urine samples were analyzed for the metabolic product diethylthiophosphate (DETP). The primary determinants of exposure and exposure distribution were job classification and the use of one type of broadcast spreader. Diazinon exposures ranged from 0.1 to 11 mg/day for workers, and from 0.03 to 0.3 mg/day for supervisory personnel, during sampling periods ranging from 3.3 to 7 hr. Individual exposures correlated well with observed duties. An association was found between morning shift diazinon exposure and afternoon urinary DETP levels.

Training Appraisers: An Orientation Program for Improving Supervisory Performance Ratings

This paper addresses management's need to train supervisory personnel in the use of employee performance appraisals. First, the application as well as the usefulness of the appraisal system is described — as dictated by and in relation to — recent litigation concerning discrimination charges. After exploration of the various approaches to employee evaluation, recommendations for effective training of supervisory personnel in implementing appraisal systems are presented. These recommendations take into consideration often neglected factors such as employee motivation, employee aptitude and discussion of performance evaluations with the employees.

The successful treatment of a dually-diagnosed deaf man's aggression with a program that included contingent electric shock

A behavioral program that included contingent electric shock was developed to treat the severely aggressive behaviors of an institutionalized, dually-diagnosed deaf male. All previous interventions including high dosages of psychotropic medications, custodial restraint, seclusion, and various behavioral procedures had been ineffective. The program included: (a) a high density of positive reinforcement for appropriate behavior; (b) a short period of intensive compliance training in a special setting using remote controlled or direct electric shock consequences contingent on aggression or property destruction; and (c) the gradual transfer of programmatic control to supervisory personnel and then direct-care staff with the inclusion of additional procedures (e.g., nonexclusionary time-out) that were intended to help ensure their safety. All forms of aggressive behavior were reduced to zero or near zero levels within one month and these effects have been maintained by direct-care staff for more than a year. The client now works all day at the institutional vocational workshop and has made several home visits without displaying aggression. The ethical, clinical, and practical considerations that arose during the development and implementation of the program are discussed in detail.

Remote Monitoring for the Intra-Aortic Balloon Pump

A system was developed for the transtelephonic transmiSSion of an ECG and arterial blood pressure waveforms from an intra-aortic balloon pump to a remote location. This system extends the capabilities of the balloon pump supervisory personnel and supplements patient care by improving communications. It has been demonstrated that ECG and arterial blood pressure waveforms can be easily transmitted by telephone, and that these signals are reproduced with such fidelity that trouble shooting and advice can be communicated from a site other than the patient's bedside. This technique was successfully employed in ten patients to date.

Supervising Community Health Workers in Community-Based Delivery of Primary Health/Family Planning Services: Experiences in Mexico, 1977–1982

The supervision of CHWs in the Mexican Rural Health Program (1977-82) illustrates a wide range of problems and strengths because it was developed within a program based on a strong political mandate to deliver services to an extremely large, as well as culturally and geographically diverse population. This article presents an in-depth perspective on the issues involved in the supervision of community health workers with a focus on the myriad roles and responsibilities which are expected from supervisory personnel. The information and observations which are offered come from program evaluation materials as well as the long-term, first hand experience of the authors with the program discussed.

Malpractice and nurse educators: defining legal responsibilities.

This article discusses the malpractice crisis in the health professions as it threatens to affect nurse educators. There is a concise explanation and review of immunity and liability doctrines for supervisory personnel. The most common conditions for patient injury are examined, and pertinent legal decisions are cited. Examples are provided for the problem areas of negligence and several practical recommendations are presented for the nurse educator who wishes to do everything possible to minimize exposure to claims of malpractice.