[axontaxi]

It's not so much punishment, as the employer is trying to increase profit by maximizing their employee's throughput.

[dkersten]

My point is: whats in it for the employee if that throughput increase takes more energy/effort on the employees part?

I usually hear that you get rewarded with more responsibility and such, but the increase in responsibility is rarely matched with a fair increase in compensation given that more responsibility usually means some combination of greater workload, more effort, longer hours, more stress.