With a polarized nation and a heated election, political conversations will inevitably creep into the workplace. Here’s how to manage it.
Just about the only thing Americans can agree upon these days is that contention over the election has heated up, following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump and President Biden dropped out of the race. The country was already divided, and as we head toward November, it threatens to divide the workplace, too.
“It’s only going to get more intense,” says Rick Grimaldi, a partner at Fisher Phillips LLP, an employment law firm. “As we head toward November we can encourage, and should encourage, regularly, our employees to be civil toward one another.”
There’s no doubt that the U.S. is so polarized that some scholars say we’re on the brink of a civil war. So what does that mean for the workplace?
While it’s not necessarily a great idea to ban talk of politics at the office, those conversations can quickly hurt a workplace culture: 51% of people surveyed in February by ResumeHelp’s February Politics in the Workplace Study said they believe workplace political discussions hurt the work environment, and 45% say they regret the political conversations they have at work.
Political Conversations are Inevitable
Political conversations at work makes for a tricky line for company leaders to walk, because many repeatedly reiterate to workers that they should bring their “whole selves” to work and speak up about what they care about. This inevitably may lead to conversations about climate change, human rights, sexism, and racism—and the presidential election.
Those conversations are inevitable, says John Higgins, co-author of Speak Out Listen Up and director of research at The Right Conversation, a UK firm that helps leaders and managers improve the effectiveness of their conversations.
“If you’re all banning political conversations— which you can’t, because it will happen anyway—that is a sign that you have a broken ‘speak up culture,’ and that is going to bite you, because you’re going to be out of touch with a more pluralistic, diverse worldview,” says Higgins.
Ultimately, employees may feel silenced, disengaged and distrustful of leadership, says Stephanie Neal, director of the center for analytics and behavioral research at DDI, a Pittsburgh leadership consulting firm. “It’s unrealistic to expect employees to leave their concerns at the door when they sign on for work each day,” she says.
Free Speech Isn’t Always Protected at Work
Yet if employees do not behave with civility in the workplace and they’re in violation of handbook policies, then employers do have legal right to discipline them—and those people can’t necessarily hide behind the First Amendment, says Grimaldi. The First Amendment protects people from having their speech limited by the government, but private employers are free to regulate speech in almost any way if it doesn’t conflict with the National Labor Relations Act or state or local law.
Employers must consider whether those conversations involve race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, age or disability, which could trigger federal, state or local anti discrimination laws.
For instance, the National Labor Relations Board recently ruled that Home Depot violated the National Labor Relations Act when it fired an employee who refused to remove the hand-drawn letters “BLM” — for “Black Lives Matter” — from a work apron. The board ruled that the employee’s conduct was “for mutual aid or protection” because the issue of racial discrimination involved employees’ working conditions.
It’s a good idea to carefully examine company policies and ensure that they’re applied consistently to avoid an accusation of bias or having preferential treatment.
Leaders Tend to Assume Others Agree with their Views
It’s not just political conversations with coworkers that can make the workplace uncomfortable: More than half of people surveyed by ResumeHelp believe their manager’s political beliefs influence their management style or decisions. At least 25% have left or wanted to leave their job because of their boss’s political beliefs, according to the ResumeHelp survey.
A separate January survey of 1,000 Americans by HiBob, a New York-based HR platform, found that half of people don’t want CEOs to express opinions publicly.
In fact, senior leadership tend to overestimate how much the rest of the company and the less powerful people agree with their point of view, says Higgins. And they discount the value of the point of view of those lower-level employees, he says.
Higgins points to the case when Google fired employees last spring for a sit-in over the Israeli-Gaza war and noted that the events hinted that there was something wrong with the company culture.
“First, these people thought that this was the only way they could be heard,” he says. “And when the executive reaction was to fire everybody, which on one hand is perfectly reasonable, it also ensures that there will be silence around controversial issues.”
Back to the Office May Foster Unity
The office could help bridge the divide between people because by being face-to-face, people get to know each other and understand each other in a way that they don’t when working remotely. When conversations take place virtually, people tend to listen less because they’re suffering from data overload, Higgins says. And it’s not always clear how comments land.
People Fear Sharing their Opinions at Work
Despite the potential for things to get heated this fall, most people don’t want to debate with colleagues. Three-quarters of people say they avoid political debates at work, up from 61% in 2023, according to HiBob’s survey. At least 81% said they would keep discussions out of company digital communication channels and 68% would avoid debating on social media.
At least half of respondents fear that sharing opinions with their manager would cause them to lose their job or hurt their relationships, and at least 61% are more hesitant to share political views with colleagues, up from 50% last year.
“If we’re going to become skilled at talking about difficult things, we’ve got to create environments where people know enough about each other so that they can actually overcome these instinctive habits,” says Higgins. “And that means approaching another person from a position of deep respect.”
