One aspect of our lives that’s likely to undergo major changes in the coming decades is the workplace. And according to Reddit users, there are plenty of common practices they believe will be considered unethical or illegal in the future. Below, we’ve gathered some of their most thoughtful responses, so enjoy reading through and imagining how much better work environments might be for our children and grandchildren.
#1
Unpaid internships. Unpaid overtime.
Image credits: pizzzadoggg
#2
Forcing a 40-hour work week when there isn't 40 hours worth of work. If it's a salary position and there's nothing to do, we should just be able to go home. We work late when there's deadlines, but when nothing is going on we can't go home early.
Image credits: Eli5678
#3
Health insurance tied to employment.
Image credits: Subject_Educator6725
#4
Tipping culture being so prevalent, and even required, for some workers to barely make a living wage.
Image credits: AtomicGearworks
#5
Little to no maternity/paternity leave.
Image credits: Large-Caterpillar-56
#6
Paying people different for same/similar jobs and prohibiting people from talking about it with each other.
Image credits: carloserm
#7
Not having places or times for women to pump
Image credits: lyquinn
#8
Attempting to encourage resignation in order to get an employee to quit without having to pay out severance or unemployment benefits.
Image credits: cyberdong_2077
#9
Paying barely above minimum wage for jobs that require a university degree.
Image credits: sisharil
#10
Unpaid training. My very first job I worked at a pizza place I "trained" for 2 weeks, never getting paid. At the end of the 2 weeks, I was informed that I would actually be a cook instead of the cashier position I applied and trained for. I left immediately.
Image credits: brianmarion
#11
Physicians being forced to work 80+ hours/week, 50 weeks/year, for 4-7 years after graduating medical school, while spending precious “free time” studying for board exams, completing tedious research projects, etc.
Image credits: ofkorsakoff
#12
Hopefully being forced to stay at work once all work is done, non living wages
Image credits: Narutophanfan1
#13
If you do a good job you're "rewarded" with extra work
Image credits: llcucf80
#14
A consistent cycle of massive hiring / massive layoffs.
Image credits: Harry_Flowers
#15
boss giving you infinite amount of work and if you can't do it then it's the employee's fault.
Image credits: JimmDunn
#16
Women get the coffee/do the staff dishes
Image credits: Jigglypuff3901
#17
This probably won't take 50 years, but forcing people to work in an office when their job does not require it.
Image credits: badlyagingmillenial
#18
Working in shops where the air can be seen because of all the diesel smoke/welding smoke etc.#19
Probably stretching but I hate when places tell you to come in for an interview for giving a wage estimate. Some situations it makes sense, but if you are running a local business offering people $7.25 US minimum wage whether they are 16 with no experience or the top of the field then you should state it and not waste people's time.So many of the "no one wants to work" crowd are trying to offer less than McDonald's pays for positions that require years of experience, education, or training.
Image credits: hereforff
#20
Salaried employees working 70-80 hours workweeks.
Image credits: Life_Muffin_9943
#21
Rotating shifts and night shifts for less necessary positions. Obviously *some* staff has to be on call or work nights at least occasionally (LEO, healthcare, emergency response) but the average utility worker, for example, should not be required to work rotating shifts. My partner is a wastewater operator and at his previous employer he had to work two weeks of day shifts followed by 2-3 days off, then two weeks of night shifts. This lovely combination ended up giving him unprecedented, unprovoked seizures! (How fun.) His employer wouldn’t work with him to move him to more normal shifts. He went on temporary disability while he couldn’t drive, during which time they hired a replacement to fill his position, forcing him to quit and move to a different company for less pay (luckily on normal, 8-10 hour, day shifts.)
Image credits: 2012amica
#22
Hopefully, it's nepotism, but I feel it will only get much worse.#23
What is accepted/normal is forcing an employee to stand for multiple hours, knowing that they have a documented medical condition that causes them severe pain to stand for hours without end.What is unethical/illegal in the next 50 years is that with the documented medical condition being known, the managers and supervisors flat out ignoring the ADA accommodation the employee applied for, asking for a short break/chair, and denying the accommodation so the employee has nothing to do but continue to stand in severe pain.
#24
Working in a 110-125 degree fahrenheit factory while watching your coworkers fall out and having the call the ambulance multiple times a week. But don't worry we got a 20 minute lunch in our 12 hour shift.#25
Drug testing for what people do off the clock.Tying job performance or bonuses to number of OSHA recordables, it just encourages people to hide injuries.
Image credits: Girion47
#26
**"Clopening"** as it currently exists in the U.S.As it stands currently OSHA suggests scheduling a person no sooner than 8 hours of their shift if the shift is 8 hours. Thankfully most companies do follow this suggestion. However, there are two problems 1) it's a suggestion and not law so some companies may schedule sooner 2) 8 hours sounds great, but it does not account for the fact that commute time back to home, cooking/eating/getting ready for bed, getting ready for the day and commuting back take up time that would be used for getting rest—you could very realistically end up with just 4 hours or rest due to a long commute, having to cook dinner, fulfill parental duties, etc.
Image credits: MaikeruGo
#27
Unpaid overtime is dying out again as we enter a Covid fuelled period of low unemployment - people are not afraid to say 'no'If a client tried to get me to work unbillable hours I'd first refuse, and if they insisted would bill the hours on other days
Image credits: snow_michael
#28
Trying to make employees be friends to each other (to boost belonging feeling so we're less likely to go elsewhere for better opportunities). We're grown ups. Don't try to tell us with whom or how to interact with colleagues on our personal time. Personal time is not for the managers and employers to manage.(had an employer try to pay us to hang with a specific colleague on our off time but we didn't like her as a person, we just tolerated her as a colleague)
(had another employer who tried to dictate : * who we speak to at the company Christmas supper; * whether or not I should have supper with my parents on a Saturday night because she wanted me to attend a voluntary social gathering of coworkers on that evening; * whether or not what we spend our time on during our off-time was "worthwhile" because we avoided social gatherings too much in her opinion)
Image credits: ChibiSailorMercury
#29
On call 24/7 365, even on vacation and not being compensated for anything off hours because you are salaried.This includes the hospital as my child was born, getting written up for not answering my phone when I was under for back surgery (they knew I was having it, but my stand in couldn't answer something so they said I failed my due diligence, and cost POTENTIAL productivity.
Fun fact, I quit and they refused to take my resignation 3 times. It took 6 weeks for them to finally stop hounding me.
Image credits: pmmlordraven
#30
The last company I was at would do forced overtime with no notice and would occasionally do 7 days a week 12 hour days. In my area there's a law that you can't force 7 days in a week and at morning meetings they flat out would tell you that they will pay the fine for breaking that law if needed and that if you don't make it in, they will let you go
Image credits: Thirelling
#31
Working for decades with a skeleton crew where each employee has the tasks of 3 employees and is paid 1/3 the wage, so they need to find a second or third job just to survive.
Image credits: tzwep
#32
Being expected to work while sick.Im currently about to start a ten hour shift even though Im ill and have a doctors note. Because I was negative for flu and covid, my work will count the absence against me even with a doctors note.
Image credits: gaylien_babe
#33
In the US (at least), I think visual privacy. I have an office, so I'm not fussed, but my staff who I love, are in "open office" that I can see anything they're doing.I've never said it, because I totally don't give a s**t as long as they finish their work, but it should be illegal for me to be upset/report (I absolutely do not) that they've hopped on Facebook for a ten minute break or whatever.
The visual privacy thing causes a lot of stress - worrying about checking your phone at your desk, etc. If there's a performance issue, there's a performance issue. If there's not, there's not. Did you submit a Draft to me at 1:30pm? Great. Was it in good-enough quality to be workable? Great. Did you spend 15 minutes chatting on Whatsapp chatting about plans this weekend? Great.
It should be illegal for a workplace to stare-at and punish someone for living their life. And it should be unethical to have people in a fishbowl with eyes on them the entire time.
Image credits: Mackheath1
#34
Reaching out to people at night (or in general outside of work hours) for things that are non-emergency.Not illegal, but it would be far outside of norm until emails/texts made this OK somehow.
Image credits: southpolefiesta
from Bored Panda https://ift.tt/6NRGDzW
