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When employees feel slighted, they work less

penntoday.upenn.edu

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Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#261

Post by goshcoding »

class3shock wrote: post #190

Slightly off topic but does anyone know if there are studies looking at the use of negative vs positive "reinforcement" on employees in order to increase productivity, reduce costs, whatever-metric-you-want-to-pick? In my professional life I have never seen people respond well to cost cutting, layoffs, understaffing, corporate bs, etc. It is always demoralizing, resulting in reduced performance and I can only imagine…

Off the top of my head, I think people that work sales and earn commissions and any tip-based work might be the ones to look into. I imagine there's studies around those types of jobs.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#262

Post by eikenberry »

trympet wrote: post #214
eikenberry wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classifying a relationship as adversarial presumes a competitive context. I don't believe we are in competition with our employer but in a cooperative relationship, so we're talking game theory. A good employer cooperates with their employees to achieve business goals, a bad manager defects and prioritizes their personal goals/desires above the shared business goals. Your relationship falls out of this behavior (assu…

What about a farm worker who tills the land? Is every farmer/farm worker achieving business goals through _cooperation_? What about seasonal farm workers? I guess the farmer can set up incentive payments, but even so, are you saying there no adversarial component to the relationship?

Any relationship can be framed however in different ways that embody different ideals. What one person views through an adversarial lens, another can view through a cooperative lens. All (above board) worker/employer relationships can be seen as cooperative. Neither entered into the agreement by force and each is getting something out of it.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#263

Post by rexpop »

dyauspitr wrote: post #243

I usually don’t shame my reports in public unless shaming them in private doesn’t work twice. However the most “successful” people I’ve seen do all their shaming immediately and in public. I also find shaming in person a lot easier than shaming on slack.

Don't do that. High-performing teams maintain a ratio of approxima ~6:1 positive comments for every criticism.

Systematic use of shame aligns with toxic leadership patterns that produce measurably negative outcomes.

Public humiliation at work can compromise social connectedness, threaten an employee's sense of belongingness, and create adversarial environments where constructive measures become impossible. When employees are disciplined publicly in front of their teams, they experience a complex mix of shame and self-doubt directed inward, compounded by anger and distrust directed outward.

Organizations lacking psychological safety fail to create cooperative collaboration environments, directly harming employee well-being and organizational performance.

The scientific literature overwhelmingly supports constructive feedback delivered privately with specific, actionable guidance focused on behaviors rather than personal attacks.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#264

Post by Izkata »

amarant wrote: post #168
gwbas1c wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't compare employee relationships to dog training. I've had a few encounters with poor managers (or potential managers) who wanted to treat me like a dog. I turned heel and ran in those cases. It's a bad analogy for managing people and should not be perpetuated.

I read gps comment as the reverse: in their analogy, the manager is the dog. On a related note, I wouldn't mind being treated like a dog by someone who is up to date with modern dog training practices: instant rewards for success, no negative feedback(unless I'm being aggressive, but I think I can manage that much), and tons of belly and/or back rubs! Where do I sign?

"Are we... bonding?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkGfF7LBlk4

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#265

Post by catlifeonmars »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #259
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It’s about a delayed feedback loop to the manager, who won’t connect the punishment (lower productivity) with the bad behavior (slighting the employee). It's delayed because the employee fears further retribution still. You need some distance between yourself and the bloodthirsty dog before you can even hope to reduce your productivity, or you'll be mauled quite enthusiastically. By delaying it for days or weeks, by…

So it's the manager who is in need of further training more so than the nominally-producing worker, if the overall productivity is to increase most directly.

Maybe maxing productivity should not always be the goal

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#266

Post by dyauspitr »

rexpop wrote: post #263
dyauspitr wrote: post #243

I usually don’t shame my reports in public unless shaming them in private doesn’t work twice. However the most “successful” people I’ve seen do all their shaming immediately and in public. I also find shaming in person a lot easier than shaming on slack.

Don't do that. High-performing teams maintain a ratio of approxima ~6:1 positive comments for every criticism. Systematic use of shame aligns with toxic leadership patterns that produce measurably negative outcomes. Public humiliation at work can compromise social connectedness, threaten an employee's sense of belongingness, and create adversarial environments where constructive measures become impossible. When emplo…

I was just talking about the criticism. There is plenty of affirmation, probably more than 6:1

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#267

Post by AceyMan »

tarkin2 wrote: post #35
mejutoco wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you train a dog, you have to give a reward very soon after the desired behavior, otherwise the dog won't associate the reward with the behavior Regarding dog training, one can use a placeholder for the reward. This is useful, for example, if you want to reward a dolphin jumping through a hula, because you will not be able to give the reward at that moment, but for example, you can say "yes!" or use a clicker a…

Have we got to the point where we need an article telling us that slighting people doesn't help their motivation? Perhaps the answer is yes when we also compare a worker's motivation to a dog's motivation seemingly without irony.

It's surprising how dumb management has gotten in the Almighty Chase for A Quarterly¹ Profit.

Remember, "it is very difficult to get a man to understand a thing when his job depends on his not understanding it." [editor:and that goes doubly for MBAs] —Upton Sinclair

¹—added adjective

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#268

Post by hnaccount_rng »

randycupertino wrote: post #235
hnaccount_rng wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that example. It’s a basic exercise in “for how little money can you break any amount of trust”. Not sure how they could avoid that (besides being competent in the first place..)

I felt like they should have just written off the error and let me keep it, as by the time they realized it, it was almost a year later, and I was a high-performer who had gotten promoted twice. I left the following year for a better opportunity, but this was sort of one thing that turned me 180* from being an all-in, kool-aid drinking culture-carrier to feeling kind of bitter and shafted by them.

Depends on the future expected value that they assign to you. But.. yes

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#269

Post by DerArzt »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #72
LightBug1 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll never register, lol. It'll end up being a tick box moment in some Friday after 5 minute management training document that got completed while thinking about what to do over the weekend.

> It'll never register, lol. Which is why people do it. You get fired if you just stop showing up on Thursdays, but not if you start reading comics on your phone for the first hour of every workday.

Yeah, naw. My team ended up firing an engineer who could have been reading comics or something for the first hour or two. The guy usually showed up to meetings but didn't deliver any work for three months.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#270

Post by catlifeonmars »

eikenberry wrote: post #262
trympet wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about a farm worker who tills the land? Is every farmer/farm worker achieving business goals through _cooperation_? What about seasonal farm workers? I guess the farmer can set up incentive payments, but even so, are you saying there no adversarial component to the relationship?

Any relationship can be framed however in different ways that embody different ideals. What one person views through an adversarial lens, another can view through a cooperative lens. All (above board) worker/employer relationships can be seen as cooperative. Neither entered into the agreement by force and each is getting something out of it.

Yeah the framing is just a tool to do different analysis. Both can be useful simultaneously.
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