Managers Who Use Punishment

1. What conditions, if any, do you think justify the use of punishment?

I believe that punishment is acceptable only if it is done in an ethical way in the workforce. The employee should know the punishment of an undesirable behavior in the workplace. In this situation the manager yelled at the employee and then threw a notebook. I believe that this type of behavior shows the company in a negative light as well as scares the employee into disliking the manager and the company and the risk of that employee of quitting is high. I believe that punishment is only warranted in extreme situations where if the employee came in drunk then his punishment would be suspension. I believe the most efficient way to shape a behavior is using positive and negative reinforcement.

2. Do you think most managers use punishment? If so, why?

I do not think that most manager use punishment. I believe that most manager work cooperatively with their employees and sit down and discuss a resolution when there are time of the employee misbehaving. During my career I have noticed that most managers that use punishment are usually power hungry individuals and are not the best of managers. I have not seen these types of managers succeed in their career because the employees that work for them do not support them and they usually get lower employee satisfaction scores.

3. What’s the downside of using punishment? Of using positive reinforcement?

The downside of using punishment is that you might lose a good employee that just needed the right tools to perform their job. The company would have to hire another employee and then train them on the job. This can cause downtime in the company’s productivity and lower morale between other employees when they see punishment as the consequences of lower productivity. The downside of using positive enforcement could be that the employee never learns from his behavior. Even though the manger praises him for the task he does right the...