【Management Discussion, Prizes for Participation】What are your thoughts on imposing financial penalties on practitioners?
Thread Content
This post was last edited by Yu Qin on 2019-10-13 at 15:26. In previous years, there were many objections within companies to imposing financial penalties for violations of rules and regulations, mainly because many people began to have an awareness of the law and believed that financial penalties (i.e., fines) could only be imposed by law; it seemed that companies had no legal basis for imposing such fines. As a result, many companies changed it to performance evaluation, using the variable portion of salaries for such assessment. This way, it seems to meet the compliance requirements. However, there is a new claim now: companies can impose financial penalties on their employees. Article 104 of the Work Safety Law stipulates that if employees of a production or business entity fail to comply with management requirements or violate work safety regulations or operating procedures, the entity shall give them criticism and education and impose sanctions in accordance with relevant regulations; if such actions constitute a crime, criminal liability shall be pursued in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Criminal Law. ”As long as this “regulation” is formulated in accordance with the requirements of Article 4 of the Labor Contract Law, it is sufficient. That’s why recent inspections by many higher-level authorities often state that the penalties are too mild, especially for violations and disciplinary offenses involving significant risks, which should not be subject to lenient punishments. There are currently two opinions: one is that employees who violate rules and regulations should be given more education, with criticism and guidance being the main approach, combined with penalties for those who break the rules through performance evaluations. Another approach is to impose strict financial sanctions (fines) for violations of rules and regulations; otherwise, unsafe behaviors cannot be corrected at all. As income increases, perfunctory performance evaluations have no impact on those who violate rules. Have everyone had such experiences in their daily production processes? To be punished or to punish others? Which of these two opinions do you support more? What’s the reason? Feel free to share your opinions and views!
Everyone who goes to school studies law, but only a few people actually use it. Is it because domestic education systems are not practical, or because students don’t study hard enough? If people could use the laws as a tool to protect themselves and understand their own actions, would crimes still occur so frequently?
Why isn’t there an automatic scoring for the replies? Making mistakes is somewhat related to learning and understanding the law, but it is not an absolutely effective method. For example, there are also many legal professionals among those who commit crimes; P
There are no points for sofas anymore; you know what happens when you ignore the laws, right?
This phenomenon is quite common. Fines for being late, fines for leaving early, fines for not following operating procedures, fines for making mistakes at work. . . . . There are too many reasons for fines. The purpose of fines for companies is to educate employees to perform their duties well, improve productivity, and enhance efficiency. But the fines need to be light enough to be effective; if they are too heavy, it will dampen motivation.
Confucianism emphasizes education as the foundation, Legalism advocates clear rewards and punishments, Mohism stresses the importance of technical skills, while Military Strategy says: \"Deception is never a bad thing in warfare.\"
The principle of clear rewards and punishments is well put; many organizations impose harsh and merciless penalties, while offering rewards only rarely and in a stingy manner. It’s absolutely annoying
Fines are not the ultimate goal; they are merely one of the effective means to achieve that goal!
Regarding fines, all companies should have such performance evaluation systems in place~~ For general violations, fines are imposed in accordance with the company’s rules and regulations (it is possible to specify a base amount and the amount of the fine); in the case of serious violations that pose an immediate threat, the penalties should be linked to factors such as the individual’s promotion prospects and annual performance assessment.
Punishment is indeed not the goal, but not imposing punishment won’t work
I have also worked for several companies, including those owned by American, Hong Kong, and German investors as well as private firms. From my experience, fines are frequently imposed, and they are used as a management tool in many domestic companies (this is just my opinion). If you don’t like it, please don’t criticize.) ； Domestic companies pay in real money – and by \"real money\" is meant the money that was already part of the salary, with deductions made through various assessment methods. For example, there are bonuses for attending work every day (which are quite common; they’re advertised as part of the salary during recruitment, but in reality employees rarely receive them). The foreign-funded companies I’ve worked with also use such a management approach, but they focus more on evaluating employees, and the results of these evaluations affect monthly and annual performance assessments. Since performance itself is an uncertain factor, when this approach is used properly and effectively, employees will pay close attention to these evaluations, and over time such assessments turn into a form of motivation ； There are also other factors related to the imposition of fines that we must take into consideration: Have the documents concerning the imposition of fines by the company been discussed and approved by the company’s internal union or by the employees’ assembly? Or are they just a small number of suggestions put forward by an individual or department? Is this job in itself really worth it for the employee? Will the salary, benefits, and perks be enough to encourage them to stay and work at this organization even after having to bear these fines? . . . . . (The above are my own insights from my professional experience as well as some views derived from discussions with colleagues ； If you don’t like it, please don’t criticize.)