91. Employees face discrimination and harassment
In an ideal world, employees have the right to work at a job where they don’t face discrimination and harassment of any kind.
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says that nearly one-third of the 90,000 complaints received in 2015 included allegations of workplace harassment. This includes unlawful harassment because of sex (including sexual orientation, gender identity, and pregnancy), race, disability, age, ethnicity or national origin, color, and religion.
Glassdoor survey finds three in five US employees have experienced or witnessed discrimination based on age, race, gender or LGBTQ identity at work.
The CNBC All-America Survey found that overall 19% of American adults said they have been victims of sexual harassment in the workplace.
They estimated that 75% of all workplace harassment incidents go unreported. Employees who experience harassment fail to report the harassing behavior or file an official complaint because they fear disbelief of their claim, inaction on their claim, blame, retaliation or retribution.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also concluded that anywhere from 25% to 85% of women experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.
United Voice found that 86% of hospitality workers in Australia have felt unsafe or at risk in their workplace. Close to half believed that their employers do not take sexual harassment in the workplace seriously.
92. Employees are discriminated by automated screening
More and more, human resources managers are relying on automatic resume screening software to navigate a vast pool of potential job seekers. Harvard Business Review reported that these software systems can weed out up to 72% of resumes before a human ever sees them.
Automated and machine-learning algorithms are used to screen resumes and communicate with job seekers.
Unfortunately, these man-made algorithms are fallible. They inadvertently reinforce discrimination in today’s hiring practices. These systems often evaluate job applicants based on subjective criteria such as one’s name. By latching on to the wrong criteria, this approach discounts the job seeker’s true potential. This may force job seekers to lie on their resumes.
With many more job seekers applying for that one job vacancy, this problem will only continue to grow into the future.
93. Wage discrimination is real in workplaces
Wage discrimination occurs regularly in workplaces. It involves differential market wage payments for otherwise identical persons.
It may occur because of prejudice, bigotry and nepotism, favoritism, racism, or just because it enhances profitability.
Statistics show that women in the US earn about 80 cents for every dollar men earn, up just a few cents since 2009.
For women of color, the wage gap is even starker. Latinas earn 52 cents to the dollar of white men, while African-American women earn just 61 cents.
In the UK, a quarter of companies and public sector bodies have a pay gap of more than 20% in favor of men. While in Australia, the gender pay gap is 28.7%.
94. Employees are misguided by inaccurate job listings
Vague job listings and descriptions are common. This makes it difficult for job seekers who may spend hours tailoring their resume and responses.
Here are a few common vague sentences and words:
(1) “Salary is commensurate with experience,” “competitive salary based on experience,” and “we offer a competitive compensation and benefits package” are meaningless phrases. Why can’t organisations be transparent about their pay given that salary ranges have already been determined in advance?
(2) The phrase “high-income potential” or “good income potential” is not directly telling job seekers what they can earn from sales or commission roles.
(3) The phrase “advancement opportunities” goes against employees’ desire to go somewhere in their jobs or careers. They certainly don’t want dead-end jobs.
(4) The words “dynamic,” “motivational,” and “entrepreneurial” will mean nothing when the organisation’s actual culture is considered. They are contrary to what is being asked for in the job listing.
Undisclosed qualifications are common in job listings.
Here is one example: “I’ve been working for the same company for over 7 years, and recently I applied for a position posted on the company website. It was a training position and I met the qualifications that were listed, and it seemed to me I would be a good fit for the job. However, the HR rep emailed me back a week after I applied to inform me that I didn’t meet the qualifications. She listed four qualifications that I did not meet, but none of those were listed in the original job posting.”
Job scam emails usually don’t include clear job descriptions, either. Many job seekers say that when they asked for job descriptions, they get the brush-off. The interviewer either ignores the questions or says something like “Don’t worry, we’ll train you.”
95. Employees are discriminated during the hiring process
Discrimination in hiring does occur.
During a job interview, the interviewee can be asked inappropriate questions about:
(1) Childcare arrangements if they are a parent or whether they plan to have children.
(2) Questions about their disabilities or health limitations or problems.
(3) Age, religion or any other personal characteristic protected under human rights.
Researchers from the National Academy of Sciences in the US looked at every available field experiment on hiring discrimination from 1989 through 2015. They found that anti-Black racism in hiring is unchanged while anti-Latino racism may have decreased modestly. They concluded that, on average, white job seekers received 36% more call-backs than equally qualified African Americans while white job seekers received on average 24% more call-backs than Latinos.
96. Employers use incorrect background screening reports
Employers use background screening reports to evaluate prospective and current employees for employment, promotion, reassignment, or retention.
Background screening reports may include many types of information including credit history, public records from civil court proceedings – such as bankruptcy filings and other court documents – and information related to employment history.
They may also include other public record information on arrests and convictions of individuals.
You need to regularly ensure that your screening reports are accurate and up-to-date. Where possible, try to identify potential errors in your background screening reports.
Employers should inform you and receive your consent before they obtain a background screening report.
Possible errors on a background screening report:
(1) Does not include correct identifying information like full name or addresses.
(2) Includes information you believe that have been expunged or sealed – Expunged or sealed records are those that have been removed from public view.
(3) Includes incomplete records.
(4) Lists single charges multiple times.
(5) Includes arrests or other negative information that occurred more than the statutory period (e.g. seven years)
(6) Misclassified misdemeanors as felonies.
(7) Includes a charge or conviction that is not yours where you were not charged or convicted of such an offense.
97. Former employers can sabotage employees’ job prospects
It is not uncommon for a potential employer to call the employee’s previous employers for references and feedback.
What employees don’t realise is that they may be getting negative feedback instead. The reality is that an employer can get away with bad-mouthing a former employee. They can say anything they want about a former employee unless the information is confidential. They could say that the employee was fired, disclose salary history, reveal if that employee quit without notice, comment on job performance, say whether that employee received disciplinary action, say whether that employee was punctual, say whether they have taken excessive sick leave, or even comment on their conduct.
Things employers can say about their former employees could certainly make it harder for job seekers to find new jobs.
98. Employees experience poor employer governance
Employees are constantly required to work in projects or initiatives where there is poor governance – no project board, no role clarity, no business cases, no reporting lines, no clarity about who is accountable, no formal processes, etc.
This causes frustration and de-motivation for employees. It essentially sets up the employee for failure or poor performance.
Poor organisational governance can impact employees’ future achievements and promotions.
99. Employees constantly deal with workplace conflicts
CPP found that 85% of employees must deal with conflict in workplaces to some degree and 29% do so “always” or “frequently.”
In Germany, this latter figure jumps to 56%, while employees in Ireland (37%) and the US (36%) also spend a significant amount of time managing disputes.
Conflicts also occurs at the most senior levels – one in eight employees (12%) say that disagreements among their senior team are frequent or continual.
The primary causes of workplace conflict are personality clashes and warring egos (49%). This is followed by stress (34%) and heavy workloads (33%).
There is an evident discrepancy between how well managers think they handle conflict and how well they do – a third of managers (31%) think they handle disagreements well, but only 22% of non-managers agree.
Furthermore, nearly half of non-managers (43%) think their bosses don’t deal with conflict as well as they should, compared to only 23% of managers who share this view.
100. Employees constantly face role ambiguity conflict
Role or work ambiguities are very common in workplaces. Employees don’t know who is going what and will feel frustrated because they don’t know what to do.
Ambiguity will impact on their performance. They can be perceived as poor performers or being unproductive even when it is not their fault.