A study on workplace satisfaction by organizational psychologist Dr. Elena Martinez found that employee engagement increases significantly when manage...

Let's begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. We'll use our understanding of pause points and segment the sentence as shown - understanding and assimilating the meaning of each segment bit by bit!

Sentence Structure

• A study on workplace satisfaction
• by organizational psychologist Dr. Elena Martinez
• found that employee engagement increases significantly
• when management actively solicits feedback:
• for instance,
• a technology company in Seattle
• saw a 35 percent improvement in retention rates
• after supervisors were trained to regularly ask team members
• whether [?] had concerns about their current projects.

Understanding the Meaning

The sentence starts by telling us about a study:

• 'A study on workplace satisfaction by organizational psychologist Dr. Elena Martinez'
  • This study was done by Dr. Martinez and looked at workplace satisfaction.

The study found something important:

• 'employee engagement increases significantly when management actively solicits feedback'
  • When management asks for feedback, employees become more engaged.

Now the sentence gives us a specific example (after the colon):

• 'for instance, a technology company in Seattle saw a 35 percent improvement in retention rates'
  • A tech company in Seattle kept 35% more employees (that's what retention means).

What caused this improvement?

• 'after supervisors were trained to regularly ask team members whether _____ had concerns about their current projects'

This is where we have the blank. Let's look at the choices - they're all different pronouns: one, they, you, it.

To see what works here, let's understand what this part is telling us:

• Supervisors were trained to ask team members a question
• The question was whether [someone] had concerns about their projects

What do we notice?

• The pronoun we need must refer back to "team members" -
  • that's who the supervisors are asking
  • that's who would have concerns about the projects

• "Team members" is plural (more than one person)
  • So we need a plural pronoun to match

Looking at our choices:

• "one" = singular
• "they" = plural
• "you" = doesn't fit the context (we're talking about team members, not addressing "you" directly)
• "it" = singular

The correct answer is they because it's the plural pronoun that correctly refers back to "team members."

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Matching Pronouns to the Words They Refer Back To

When you use a pronoun, it must match the noun it's referring back to (called the antecedent in grammar terms) in two key ways:

1. Number (singular or plural):

• Singular antecedent: The employee submitted his report.
• Plural antecedent: The employees submitted their reports.

2. Person (first, second, or third):

• Third person (describing others): The students said they were ready.
• Second person (addressing someone): You said you were ready.
• NOT: The students said you were ready.

In this question:

• The antecedent is "team members" (plural, third person)
• So we need "they" (plural, third person)
• The supervisors ask team members whether they had concerns
• "They" clearly refers back to the team members being asked