Rehabilitation and punishment

When it comes to punishment, the method executed greatly affects the expected results, intentionally or otherwise. While a punishment may be intended to make a relationship more stable, and therefore more profitable, pushing a person too hard will instead make them less compatible with others. As such, it is important to find a moderate punishment that incentivizes the troublesome individual to reform without being so harsh as to make the problem worse. I will look at some examples both relating to my own life and fictional to determine what sort of punishment would be the most fitting.
While a severe punishment may more damaging than helpful, the threat of the punishment might be more useful. While I was working over the summer, one of my coworkers was caught slacking off and was given a warning. If they were caught one more time they would be fired. After that, they became much more productive as they knew that they would be monitored more closely. This punishment has several benefits.  The first is that it acts as a buffer for a much more severe form of discipline which eliminates any chance of rehabilitation. Secondly, the increased monitoring practically guarantees that the person or people monitored will be more affable and productive. However, this does not actually fix the interpersonal relationship between the workers, which is much more difficult. 
Ensuring that the relationships between workers of the same rank is strong is just as important as the making sure the relationship with superiors. If one group member is forcing others to put in more effort to cover for their mistakes or lack of productivity, not only does it make the entire group less productive than what they could be, but also makes the other workers resent the problem member. Attempts at intervention must be done much for tactfully here. A famous example would be in the movie Full Metal Jacketin which a drill instructor decides to punish an entire platoon of new recruits when one of the recruits fails to improve. Furthermore, he does not make the recruit responsible do any of the punishments. I can only assume this is to either make the recruit feel guilty so he will take initiative to improve himself, or make the other recruits have a vested interested in helping him improve. In practice, they end up hating the recruit and beat him with socks full of soap at night. This treatment eventually leads the to the recruit going crazy and killing the drill instructor before shooting themselves. In this situation, it would have been better to just break off the relationship entirely and expel the recruit from the platoon. There are times when a relationship is just not salvageable and so the only way to improve productivity as a whole would be to remove the problem element entirely. While it is not the most ideal, sometimes it cannot be helped. 
In cases where the employee is attempting to improve and simply struggles working on tasks or in a group, I would not punish them, but offer them help to improve. This establishes a positive relationship and improves the productivity of the worker. A lack of ability but the presence of potential and a desire to reach that potential is key for this approach to work. If it is clear that a person is just not suited to the task no matter what or just does not care than breaking off the relationship or punishing them is the more practical and logical choice. However, I believe people need to take time to accurately determine the lack of these qualities before taking action.

Comments

  1. Professor ArvanNovember 8, 2019 at 2:20 PM

    I normally don't try to suggest alternative language for students, but if I were you I wouldn't use the word executed in the same sentence with the word punishment. Although you meant executed in a way that means implemented, it possibly could be taken another way. So I wouldn't risk that.

    Regarding your first example, you are correct that progressive discipline is the prescribed way to go about things. But I would ask a few specifics. Is a warning the same as a punishment or something else, (perhaps a specific type of message)? If a waning has been issued, is it reasonable to expect the next time around there will be something harsher? Or should one expect a second warning? Does that depend on the nature of the transgression and the culture of the place of work?

    Then I would ask something that is a game theory idea. If the employee did think he was being monitored more, does that manager indeed have to monitor more or not? Suppose for the moment that monitoring is costly in that it takes away from other work the manager might be doing? Is there some way that the manager can bluff that he's monitoring a lot, like making a bluff in a game of poker? Would the warning then be part of it?

    In fact, it may be that monitoring more isn't needed to get a change of behavior. All that's needed is to perceive a larger loss if caught not working. We'll actually model this sort of thing when we do the Shapiro-Stiglitz model. It says the combination of monitoring and punishment is what provides the incentive.

    Regarding your last paragraph, I think the issue is whether one can readily distinguish the person who really is trying but is not very effective currently, from a different person who is equally ineffective but that's because the person isn't trying much at all. Perhaps co-workers can distinguish these cases better than the manager can, in which case it behooves the manger to have some private conversations with the co-workers to get a sense of what is really going on.

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    1. Tjalling koopmansNovember 11, 2019 at 12:30 PM

      In Response to the question about monitoring, it is not as costly as you believe. It operates on the principal of a panopticon in that while there is an increase in monitoring, it is not constant. However it is pervasive enough that the monitored person will alter their behavior as if they were always being watched due to the existence of a chance of being caught. As for multiple warnings, I believe this to be counterproductive outside of very minor infractions. If multiple warnings are given and the amount given before punishment is meted out is known to the employee, they will continue their problematic behavior until they are on their last warning.

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