ABA organizations lose staff at rates that should be treated as a clinical emergency. High turnover is not merely an operational inconvenience — it disrupts client relationships, degrades procedural fidelity, imposes ongoing recruiting and training costs, and depletes the organizational knowledge base that makes effective treatment possible.
Provider: BehaviorLive — via Colorado Association for Behavior Analysis
Take This Course →Including ethics, supervision, and topics like this one. New live CEU every Wednesday.
Join Free →The ABA field faces high rates of burnout and turnover, yet many supervisory practices still rely on aversive control or non-contingent rewards to get work done. This session explores practical, behavior-analytic approaches for increasing work enjoyment and staff retention through effective supervision. Through research grounded in OBM and IO psychology research, participants will learn how to proactively assess for burnout, identify job crafting behaviors, deliver high-quality positive feedback, and embed individualized non-monetary reinforcers into everyday supervision. Strategies to reduce aversiveness, support professional development, and coach self-care repertoires will also be addressed. Attendees will leave with actionable tools to create reinforcement-rich work environments that sustain performance, satisfaction, and well-being... without pizza parties or employee-of-the-month gimmicks.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1 | Supervision |
| COA | 1 | — |
Shannon Biagi, MS, BCBA, is a professor and academic administrator at the University of West Florida's Center for Behavior Analysis and a doctoral student in Instructional and Performance Technology. With over a decade of experience in Organizational Behavior Management (OBM), she specializes in data-driven strategies to improve employee engagement, leadership development, and organizational systems. She is the founder and CEO of Chief Motivating Officers, LLC, where she partners with organizations to assess employee experience, conduct systems analyses, and implement sustainable performance solutions grounded in applied behavior analysis. Shannon has received multiple national awards for applied OBM and performance improvement interventions and is a frequent invited speaker at international ABA and OBM conferences. Shannon’s ongoing mission is to improve the world at work by amplifying employee voices, building ethical and inclusive workplaces, and translating behavioral science into meaningful organizational change.
Dig into the research behind this topic — plain-English summaries written for BCBAs.
279 research articles with practitioner takeaways
224 research articles with practitioner takeaways
200 research articles with practitioner takeaways
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Research-backed educational guide for behavior analysts
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All behavior-analytic intervention is individualized. The information on this page is for educational purposes and does not constitute clinical advice. Treatment decisions should be informed by the best available published research, individualized assessment, and obtained with the informed consent of the client or their legal guardian. Behavior analysts are responsible for practicing within the boundaries of their competence and adhering to the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.