Radical Workplace Ideas from 1993

Recently I started reading Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace by Ricardo Semler, published in 1993. The author was born in Brazil, the son of Austrian immigrants, and inherited his father’s manufacturing business, Semco, at an early age. Not liking the traditional workplace style after several years of stress, Semler set out to build the most democratic environment.

Here’s what the book publishers labeled the most radical ideas in 1993:

• No dress code
• No secretaries
• Workers set their own salaries (based on budgets and department profitability)
• Required vacation time

It’s interesting to look back nearly 20 years and see three of the four highlighted items as things that are pretty commonplace today. 20 years from now I wonder what will be common in the workplace that’s considered radical today.

What else? What are some other major changes in the workplace over the past 20 years? What’s going to be normal 20 years from now?