Are Hilary and Trump showing up in your workplace?

by Sep 22, 2016

Recently someone asked me about how to handle conversations about the presidential campaign at work. Emotions are running higher than usual this year, and it’s apparently bleeding into the workplace.

Employees may find themselves in a conversation around the water cooler that could easily get out of hand.

Here’s A Few Tips for Curbing Political Talk at Work

If politics is seeping into your organization, send an email to all employees at all levels, reminding them that your organization is a workplace focused on respect and civility, so emotional and angry political conversations have no place in your company.

You could also provide the following types of reminders:

  • Although political conversations evoke strong emotions, everyone should keep their volume and emotions in check.
  • If you don’t like where a conversation is headed, just say, “Excuse me, I’m going to step out” and walk away.
  • Don’t expect to convince others to vote for your candidate of choice. If you go into political conversations knowing it will only be a conversation, and you will never be successful in swaying people, it can help keep your frustrations down.
  • Agree to disagree. The workplace is already full of different people who believe in different religions, ways of life, and more, so continue to celebrate those differences and enjoy your co-workers.

In the end, politics have nothing to do with the job at hand, and conversations about politics leave the door wide open for hurt, anger and frustration. They also open the door for retaliation, and behavior that could be illegal. Anger breeds aggression, and aggression can turn into a harassment law suit. (No, political party is not a protected class. But any good plaintiff’s attorney can find a protected class to stick their client into if they need to make a case.)

Here’s What NOT To Do

Employers should stay away from attempting to ban political conversation altogether. If an employee talks about a candidate’s promise to increase wages, for example, this is a conversation about labor issues and trying to ban it could get the employer in trouble.

Also keep in mind that employers cannot dictate how employees should vote, and should never send out any communication of any kind regarding political views of the CEO or leadership.

In the End…

If emotional political conversations are on the rise in your workplace, provide some guidelines for having those conversations, and keep your eyes peeled for any resulting negative behaviors or aggression.

Ultimately, if you have a positive and healthy workplace, where respect and civility are the norm, your employees can likely easily talk about politics without issue.

One More Step

If you’re interested in getting started on building a better culture in your workplace, I’m doing a webinar on Oct 5, 2016 on helping employees thrive. I’m going to give you the seven facets of employee engagement, and 52 easy-to-implement action items for creating it. Claim your spot!

Catherine

Do you know how much money chronically bad behavior costs your company? Spoiler alert – it’s a LOT higher than you want it to be. Download our data and worksheet to see how it’s costing your organization and what you can do to fix it.

 

Catherine

About Catherine Mattice

Catherine Mattice, MA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, is the founder/CEO of Civility Partners, an organizational development firm focused on helping organizations create respectful workplace cultures and specializing in turning around toxic cultures. Civility Partners’ clients range from Fortune 500’s to small businesses across many industries. Catherine is a TEDx speaker and an HR thought-leader who has appeared in such venues as USA Today, Bloomberg, CNN, NPR, and many other national news outlets as an expert. She’s an award-winning speaker, author and blogger, and has 50+ courses reaching global audiences on LinkedIn Learning. Catherine’s award-winning book, BACK OFF! Your Kick-Ass Guide to Ending Bullying at Work, was hailed by international leadership-guru, Ken Blanchard, as, “the most comprehensive and valuable handbook on the topic.” Her latest book is Navigating Toxic Work Environments For Dummies (Wiley).

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