Principles of Employee Control

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about how to better tighten the reins at work.  My employees are forgetting their place and not following my orders immediately and with vigor.  Every so often, you have to switch things up a little.  Employee control is a dynamic process.  Though most of the work is in the initial establishing of your superiority, you still have to do some work to maintain the alpha dog domination.

Right now, I'm focusing on 5 principles from the PHB Research Institute to re-establish my firm control of my underlings.  These principles are known by their MERGE acronym, which stand for: Maltreat, Ensnare, Regulate, Grift, Exhaust

• Maltreat - Employees are not your friends.  They are underlings whose sole purpose is to serve you.  If you show any softness, they will take advantage of your weakness.
  
• Ensnare - Find every possible thing to hold over your employees to establish your dominance and control over them.  The paycheck is only one method.  Crushing their self esteem and making them dependent on you is another.  There are many ways to skin the cat here.
  
• Regulate - Workers under you are chaotic lazy dunces.  If they don't have strict rules (with harsh consequences for not following), they simply will not get anything done.  Lay down the law.
  
• Grift - Remember, your workers are not trustworthy, so there's no reason to always tell the truth.  Lying and cheating serve a useful purpose for maintaining control over your employees.
  
• Exhaust - Lest they idle long enough to realize what you're doing, you must keep your employees constantly working.  Try to bring them to the edge of burning out.  If they're too tired to do anything else but work, they can't challenge your authority.  Don't worry about burning them out.  Employees are always replaceable.