I’m a lowly peasant in one of those big companies that announced they were doing massive layoffs. To my knowledge, the building I work at has avoided this, but I digress.
There have always been asshole managers that work in my area, but they usually left me alone because they know that I know what I’m doing. Lately though, this has changed.
Since the layoffs have started it seems that all managers have been a hardass. Managers barely do any work besides paperwork/meetings before and after the shift and IMO the only actual work they do is tell people where to go and then yell at them for not going fast enough (to make it look like they are actually doing something).
I have recently heard on good authority that upper management has actually told them to be assholes to everybody. My question is “to what end?”
Has there been some research done that shows that negative reinforcement yields better results than treating people with respect?