Lessons from America's worst employers of 2020.

• Author: Hyman, Jon
• Position: WHAT I WOULDN'T DO: Legal Updates from HR's Trenches

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has taught us a lot about ourselves and fellow Americans. These lessons also extend to the workplace.

For example, have you heard about the meat processing plant manager who organized a cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool for supervisors to guess how many of the plant's 3,000 employees would test positive for COVID-19? In case you are wondering, the current answer was over 1,000, with five deaths.

How about the company accused of firing office workers who expressed concern about their employer's plan to end remote work arrangements? It insisted that all employees return to work in person. For the record, this entity is a large national HR certification and lobbying organization.

What about the company that fired its HR manager for "exaggerating the China Virus," after she sent an email to employees about COVID and required two employees to stay home for one week after vacationing in China and Malaysia?

Or the theme park employer accused of keeping employees in the dark about which of their fellow workers are sick with the virus, and requiring COVID-positive employees to return to work before the end of their CDC-recommended isolation?

Or the employer who fired a work-at-home mom because her one- and four-year-old children were making noise in the background of her conference calls? She says no clients ever complained. The...