SUPPORTING ATTITUDES MANAGEMENT

A Component of Training and Talent

Yasmín Hernández

, Guillermo Rodríguez

and Israel Paredes

Gerencia de Tecnologías de la Información, Instituto de Investigaciones, Cuernavaca, México

Subdirección de Generación, Comisión Federal de Electricidad, México D.F., México

Keywords: Attitudes, Human Resources Training, Talent Management, Attitudes Measurement.

Abstract: Talent, also known as human capital, has been recognized as key component of companies’ success due to

its impact in every process of organizations. A component of talent is the attitude, which is generally known

as a disposition of the person to act in a certain way. We have worked in modelling attitudes as a component

of training and talent management. The initial version of the proposed attitudes model consists in relevant

attitudes and its relationships, attitudes classification and attitudes measurement scales. To support the

implantation model, a computer system in web has been developed. The attitudes model, a computer system

for its implementation and the results in the process to implant the attitudes model are presented.

1 INTRODUCTION

Talent management has become an important

element in the operation of every organization

(Cunningham, 2007), as a strategy to achieve the

organization’s objectives. Talent management can

be defined as a set of actions to obtain capacities,

commitments and actions to achieve competitive

results at the present and in the future (Paredes,

Rodríguez and Molina, 2007). Main functions of

talent management are to attract, to identify and to

retain qualified employees to assure of the

achievement of organization’s objectives.

An important aspect of talent management are

attitudes due they are implicated in the personnel

behaviours and therefore in their reaction to each

situation. There are several situations in work

context where the attitudes are keys for the final

result. For example, it is desirable that workers have

a good learning attitude in order the training have

successful results and in a short period of time; and

in order to have a null or low amount of accidents it

is desirable that people have a good security attitude.

Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), the

Mexican electrical utility, has a large and diverse

workforce with multiple functions and participating

in every process of electric power generating,

therefore it needs a way to model attitudes, and a

computer system to measure and manage attitudes is

also needed.

2 TALENT, TRAINING AND

ATTITUDES

Human resources constitute the most valuable

ownership in every organization, since they are

related to every organization’s processes, and

therefore they have a strong influence in the final

results. Hence it is very important to have means to

manage them and especially to manage their talent.

CFE has been implemented a Talent Management

Model with four main aspects: training, working

experience, value contribution and academic

development. In Figure 1 we can see the basics of

the Talent Model.

Talent

Management

Training

Competences

Positions

Instructoring

Metodologies

development

Academic

Grades

Manuals

developments

Actitudes

Figure 1: Management Talent Model.

598

Hernández Y., Rodríguez G. and Paredes I..

SUPPORTING ATTITUDES MANAGEMENT - A Component of Training and Talent.

DOI: 10.5220/0003962705980601

In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies (WEBIST-2012), pages 598-601

ISBN: 978-989-8565-08-2

 2012 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

Some computer systems have been developed for

managing these components, such as: System for

Training Management: SIC R/1, System for Human

Capital Management: SICAPH, Repository of

learning objects: Aprend-e and System for Talent

Management: Talento (Paredes, Rodríguez and

Molina, 2007).

Perhaps the most highlighted element of talent is

the training of staff. The training is the assembly of

activities directed to provide know-how, to develop

abilities and to modify attitudes of the personnel of

all the levels for the best performance of the work

(Paredes, Rodríguez and Molina, 2007).

There are several definitions of attitudes, and

they all, or mostly, agree on the nature of them:

attitudes are setup across the individual long life,

they change continually and they are influenced by

surrounding reality. The attitudes are composed by

three elements: thinking, feeling and behaviour

(Wikipedia, 2009). And they are the result of values

and norms preceding it; it is an evaluative trend

(either positive or negative) about people, events or

things. The attitudes reflect how we feel about

something or someone and predict our tendency to

act a certain way. It is linked with our mental models

which are structured in our childhood and continue

to be strengthened in our daily lives (See figure 2).

Personality traits

Actitudes

Competences

Values

Background

Education

Family

Life

Behavior

Figure 2: Attitudes Setup.

A key aspect to implant an attitude management

model is to identify the relevant attitudes for the

work environment and for the processes, functions

and activities developed for the staff. Table 1 lists

some desirable attitudes at work.

Table 1: Examples of desirable attitudes at work.

Attitudes

Learning Flexibility

Tolerance Cooperative

Commitment Adaptation

Loyalty Perseverance

Service c Work satisfaction

Gentle Work commitment

Responsibility Organization commitment

Subsequently, we have to measure these

attitudes. There several ways to measure attitudes;

we selected to build Likert scales, since they are

relatively simple for building and answering. We

look for a simple way to measure attitudes so the

workers can feel comfortable and they can answer in

a free way.

Likert scales translated the classical

measurement of personality traits towards attitudes

measurement: the sum of a series of responses to

items measuring (or expressing) the same feature

puts the subject in the variable (attitude) that is

measured. The only basic assumption is that the

response evoked by each item is a function of the

subject's position in the continuous variable

measured: the more agreement (or disagreement),

the subject is more the trait being measured. There is

no specific number of items for a scale of

measurement, but it is common to have about 20

items (Morales Vallejo, 2009, 2006). Table 2 shows

an example of a Likert scale measuring the attitude

of learning. This scale has 3 items and 5 likely

answers; the response of the individual expresses the

degree of agreement with the views expressed in the

items.

Table 2: Likert scale to measure learning attitude.

State your position on the

following statements:

Strongly agree

Agree on certain aspects

undecided

Disagree on certain

aspects

Strongly disagree

Knowledge achieved in

school is useless in

daily life.

To keep your job, work

experience is

insufficient.

I only study when I

have test.

At first glance, a scale to measure attitudes may

seem a questionnaire, but there are some differences.

The difference between a questionnaire and a scale

is that the former is made up of questions that are

analyzed independently, while a scale consists of

questions or items that express the same trait or

attitude and the answers to which are added in a total

indicates where you are or how much each

individual has the attitude to be measured.

The inter-item co-relationships have to be

positive and the shared variance between items is

related to attitude or trait to be measured. The test

theory (reliability, error, etc.) on personality tests or

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on academic performance, is applicable to Likert

scales (Morales Vallejo, 2009, 2006).

To built a scale we have to conform a people

team which know the people who is supposed to

answered the scale and they have also to know the

attitude we want to measure. The process to build an

attitude scales is composed by the following steps:

1) to describe the attitude, 2) to prepare the

measurement instrument (to write items), 3) to

obtain data from a population sample, and 4)

statistical analysis.

The building process of the scale begins

establishing a common definition of the attitude to

be measured; then write the items of the pilot scale

to be applied to a sample of the population. In the

pilot study, we obtain data to carry out statistical

tests (Student t test) to determine the items of the

final scale.

We used the concepts stated above to develop an

attitudes model for CFE; in the next section we

present such an attitudes model.

3 ATTITUDES MODEL

CFE is concerned in having management systems

that enable to meet the staff, keep updated workers,

and thus take appropriate actions to improve the

performance of the electric power generation. For

this reason, as part of strategic planning and to

strengthen

the talent management model, CFE

decide to develop a management model of attitudes.

The attitudes model consists of 11 attitudes:

learning, safety, job satisfaction, work commitment,

organizational commitment, responsibility, service,

perseverance, loyalty, leadership and ethics.

We built the model with two different

classifications: a classification is concerned with

attitudes must be acquired with respect to the

liability of these jobs (hierarchical levels) and the

other attitudes classification is concerned with

attitudes to play the activities and functions of each

job position (functional levels). In Figure 3, the

classifications of attitudes in our model are outlined.

High

Intermediate

Basic

Managerial Operational

Core

Figure 3: Attitudes Classifications.

In the literature, we can find many examples of

scales of measurement for several attitudes, but for

our model we decided to build the measurement

scales because the instruments must be designed

specifically for individuals who answer them and

taking into account the objectives of the

organization.

Up to now, we have built seven scales to

measure attitudes. Table 3 shows for each of the

scales, the number of participants in the pilot

studies, the number of items of the final scale (after

statistical analysis), and the reliability of the scale

(coefficient α, Cronbach's alpha), which expresses

the internal consistency of the scale, i.e. how much

items are related to each other.

Table 3: Likert scales in the model.

Scale to measure attitude of: Part. Items α

Learning 960 25 0.85

Safety 1114 25 0.88

Work behaviour

(job satisfaction,

work commitment,

organizational commitment)

64 30 0.84

Service 221 26 0.94

Responsibility 218 30 0.78

Perseverance 249 25 0.89

Loyalty 233 25 0.90

4 SIMA’S ARCHITECTURE

The Attitudes Measurement System, SIMA (for the

Spanish, Sistema de Medición de Actitudes) was

developed to support the attitudes model

implantation and to strengthen the talent

management. SIMA provides information to talent

model; which in turn provides information to

managers to recognize the talent of the company and

to recognize the opportunity areas of the

organization and in this way take suitable actions for

the well operation of the company at the right time.

To achieve that objective, SIMA automates the

processes of construction of attitudes measurement

scales and its application to staff. Besides, SIMA

allows exploiting information.

SIMA has three main modules: construction of

attitudes measurement, attitudes assessment and

talent. In the first module: construction of attitudes

measurement scales, the user can build Likert scales

to measure attitudes. In the second module the users

can assign and answer the scales to measure

attitudes. The third module, talent, allows users to

see the information about attitudes’ organization in

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the form of graphical and tabular reports, and also

queries can be made.

Given the different responsibilities in SIMA

system, there are six user’s roles: worker, evaluator,

methodologist, reviewer, manager and system

administrator. These roles take part in different

processes: 1) the worker role answer the scales; 2)

the evaluator role assigns the scales to be answer by

the worker, and also supervises the process; 3) the

methodologist role is part of the scale construction

team which build a scale; 4) the reviewer role is in

charge to supervise and approve the final scales; 5)

the manager role can consult the information yielded

by the model of attitudes, and 6) the role of

administrator is responsible for system operation.

Figure 4 shows the architecture of SIMA and the

various roles

Instruments

Construction

Attitudes

Assessment

Methodologist

Reviewer

Attitudes Management

Manager

Worker

Evaluator

Administrator

Talent Management

Figure 4: Architecture of SIMA system.

The system was developed in Visual Studio. NET

Framework 3.5 2008 with C # programming

language. The architecture includes the LINQ

technology levels (Clark, 2011). The database was

modelled on SQL Server 2008 (Kellenberg, 2009).

Figure 5 shows a screenshot of SIMA.

Figure 5: SIMA system screenshot.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The model of attitudes was applied in a

thermoelectrical generation plant, where 300

workers answered the scales for job behaviour and

safety attitudes. These two scales were assigned to

the workers; however, 10% of participants

voluntarily answered the rest of the scales.

The model also has been used in a formative

training course for plant operators.

The plan for attitudes model implantation

involves the application of scales measuring

attitudes in two power plants in the short term while

waiting for their application in other workplaces of

CFE. Furthermore, research in the field of

management attitudes continues, we plan to include

other attitudes to the model and the construction of

new scales of attitudes.

In this paper we presented a model of attitudes

developed for CFE at México. The model of

attitudes has been built based on knowledge of the

organization and employees; the aim is to have a

stronger talent management model. We also

presented a computer system that was developed in

order to support the implementation of model

attitudes.

The model has been applied in a thermoelectric

generation plant and in a formative course for plant

operators of CFE with good acceptance and results.

REFERENCES

Clark, D., 2011. The expert´s voice in SQL Server,

Beginning C# Object-Oriented Programming., New

York, Apress Editorial.

Cunningham, I., 2007. Talent management: making it real,

Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 21,

No. 2, pp. 4-6.

Kellenberger, K., 2009. The expert´s voice in SQL Server,

Beginning T-SQL 2009. New York: Apress Editorial.

(base de datos)Paredes Rivera, J., Rodríguez Ortiz, G.,

Molina González, R., 2007. La gestión del talento del

personal de operación de generación eléctrica.

Decimoctava Reunión de Otoño de Comunicaciones,

Computación y Electrónica ROCC 2007, 25-30

Noviembre, Acapulco, Guerrero, México

Morales Vallejo, P., 2006. Medición de actitudes en

psicología y educación, Madrid, España: UPCO.

Morales Vallejo, P., 2009. Guía para la construcción de

escalas de actitudes, http://www.upcomillas.es

Wikipedia, 2009. Actitud, http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Actitud

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