Here is the translation of the given content into English: "Thus punishing employees most effectively"

Author: Shen Wanfeng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: Traditionally, more methods were used in management through punishment to motivate employees to work harder and meet standards. With the development of society and progress in management, especially the rise of human-centered management, the method of punishment has gradually given up its dominant position and become a relatively less emphasized "negative motivation" in management incentive theory. Various management literature has reduced discussions on punishment, treating it as a supplementary part of various positive incentives. Practitioners and learners in management are also more inclined to pursue the "carrot" approach for employees, deliberately neglecting the "stick" method. However, in practice, the method of punishment has never left the historical stage and has not been ignored in practice due to human-centered management. The reason punishment is not widely praised is partly because previous management emphasized punishment over rewards; on the other hand, punishment conflicts with the trend of human-centered management in its literal meaning, and people are willing to emphasize it in practice but reluctant to discuss it openly. Precisely because of this reality, we believe that in modern management, it is even more important to summarize and study the methods of punishment in the era of human-centered management, so that punishment does not become "underground behavior"—punishment actions are taken, but not pursued for rationality and effectiveness. In modern enterprise management, both rewards and punishments are means of motivating employees, but many enterprisesly understand motivation, believing that as long as employees are rewarded, they can fully mobilize their enthusiasm and initiative, making them love their company and be dutiful in their work. However, rewards do not always achieve the expected results, and one-sided rewards have many drawbacks. Rewards cannot be equated with employees' values. The purpose of rewards is to elicit specific behaviors from employees, so these rewards must be sufficiently attractive to them, and only then can rewards become a driving force. However, many enterprises often subjectively judge employees' work standards when formulating corporate reward plans and do not make detailed distinctions in employees' personal values, so the reward plans often form a "point leading to the whole"—one standard fits all employees. The reason why corporate rewards do not interest employees is that everyone's values are not the same. Rewarding one department or one person may be a punishment for others. A certain company, due to good performance, decided to give a bonus to the marketing department. When employees in the production department learned about this, they thought: "Good, everything is the marketing department's achievement. We work overtime and still don't get rewards, so why should we still work so hard?" As a result, in the second month, the company's product defect rate, scrap rate, and rework rate all rose significantly, costs increased, and efficiency definitely declined. Is this the purpose of the company's rewards? Rewards—competition—conflict. Complicate team relationships. Interest is a driving force that encourages people to adopt certain behavioral patterns, so the distribution and redistribution of interests can make team relationships more complex. A sales department manager, to create a competitive environment within the department, decided to implement a competitive management model, rewarding the salesperson with the highest sales each month with extra incentives. However, when the top salesperson had difficulties seeking help from others in the team, many people avoided it with various excuses. When customers called the rewarded salesperson, they might not relay the message, leading to the company's loss of customers. They might even steal other employees' customer data or even slander the company's salesperson in front of customers. Thus, rewards created competition, and competition then evolved into conflict. Rewards encourage and reinforce past successful models while losing innovation. Those who receive rewards are often successful, but successful experiences can encourage and reinforce past successful models while losing the ability to innovate. The carrot-and-stick policy uses the stick to punish wrong behavior and the carrot to reward correct behavior. Just as the stick punishment principle only motivates people to avoid the stick, rewards can make people become experience-driven, forming a mindset inertia, thus losing the motivation to innovate. Rewards can lead people to resort to means. Human nature is evil, and interest can lead people to resort to means. Rewards are a form of motivation, but rewards are not necessarily the "best" form of motivation. From another perspective, punishment is the "best" form of motivation, and necessary punishment can play a role that rewards cannot. Punishment can take many forms, from minor criticism and warnings to severe measures like imprisonment or even deprivation of life. This book primarily discusses the scientific punishment for violating corporate regulations, such as criticism, warnings, serious warnings, demerits, severe demerits, demotion, dismissal, probation, and termination. As for those who violate the law, they are handled by judicial authorities according to the law, which is not the topic of this book.