During a contentious election year in the United States, political activity in the workplace has become a gray area for many working professionals. Host Amber Clayton and SHRM Knowledge Advisors Jennifer Chang and Rue Dooley discuss how to navigate these potentially tumultuous waters both as an employer and employee.
During a contentious election year in the United States, political activity in the workplace has become a gray area for many working professionals. Host Amber Clayton and SHRM Knowledge Advisors Jennifer Chang and Rue Dooley discuss how to navigate these potentially tumultuous waters both as an employer and employee.
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Monique Akanbi:
Welcome to Honest HR, the podcast for informed and aspiring HR professionals intent on transforming workplace challenges into golden opportunities.
Amber Clayton:
Every week we chat with industry experts to bring you insights, trends, and actionable advice through relatable stories from the real world of HR.
Wendy Fong:
Honest HR is a SHRM podcast, and by listening, you're helping to build a more engaged workforce and drive organizational success. I'm Wendy Fong.
Amber Clayton:
I'm Amber Clayton.
Monique Akanbi:
And I'm Monique Akanbi.
All:
Now, let's get honest.
Amber Clayton:
Hello everyone and welcome back. I'm your host, Amber Clayton, senior director of SHRM's Knowledge Center Operations. In our episode today, we're going to discuss the technical competency, HR expertise, employee and labor relations. This podcast is approved to provide 0.5 PDCs towards SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP recertification if you listen to the full episode. Today, we're going to talk about political activities in the workplace. I recently had a podcast with Emily Dickens and Derek Sheets on political conversations in the workplace. This one's a little bit different though. These are activities that happen in the workplace, and HR professionals, employers, they need to know how to manage them.
One of the questions that we've gotten from our members in the knowledge center is that they would like to provide tools and resources for their managers to help them deal with any tensions or issues that may occur during the upcoming election. What do they need to be prepared for? Also, how can they prepare employees who interact with customers? And so today we're going to talk about these various activities and issues that may result from politics. I'm pleased to be joined today by Rue Dooley and Jennifer Chang, both HR Knowledge advisors at SHRM. Welcome to the show, Rue and Jennifer.
Jennifer Chang:
Thank you.
Rue Dooley:
Hey.
Jennifer Chang:
Glad to be here.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah. Great. So Rue, I feel like you've been on a podcast previously, is that right?
Rue Dooley:
Yes. Yes, I have. Yep.
Amber Clayton:
I thought so. So you're not new to this game, but could you still tell the audience a little bit about yourself?
Rue Dooley:
Not much to tell because there isn't much to me. I'm just an old man trying to figure out how to retire without any money. I've been a knowledge advisor for about 23 years, and I have a background in knowledge advising, and I love HR and I love serving our members. It feels great to be able to answer questions about what's going on in the human resource community every day of my life. That just feels good.
Amber Clayton:
Jennifer.
Jennifer Chang:
Thank you, Amber. Well, I have only been a knowledge advisor for three years. Prior to that, I worked as an HR director in government contracting, and I did take some time off to raise my daughter, which was wonderful. But working as a knowledge advisor is amazing. I love being able to help our members, like Rue does, and just really impact work for everyone. So that's awesome.
Amber Clayton:
Great. Well, thank you both. I think we should just go ahead and jump into this topic here. So we know employers have to deal with various issues at work, and this time of year, we're in a presidential election year. There's a lot happening. We talked in my last podcast episode around civility in the workplace and having civil conversations, and we'll talk briefly on that one. But really I want to focus on some of those activities and things that happen, that employers might not be aware of, or that might be happening right now, and how to deal with those issues. So let's start with this one. Employee requests time off to work the voting polls. What do employers do? Are they required to allow the person to take time off to work at the voting polls, and is it something that has to be paid? Or is it unpaid? Or can they use their vacation time, their sick time? What do you think about that?
Rue Dooley:
Yeah, Jennifer, what do you think about that?
Jennifer Chang:
I knew you were going to do that. I think it depends on state regulations. Many states do allow time off for voting, but an employer would really want to look at the regulations to see if they also require and allow time off to work in that civic capacity as a poll worker. They would really want to look at the regulations to see if the time off is allowed for working at the polls themselves. So beyond that, an employer could also just provide the time off as part of their company policy. They could offer paid time off for that, in addition to their normal paid time off, if that's part of their core values to be that civic minded. Or they could allow an employee to use their paid time off and supplement that time with that pay if they wanted to.
Amber Clayton:
So if the state doesn't require the employer to provide time off for employees for working at the polls, really they could say no. It could be disruptive to the business, right?
Jennifer Chang:
They could. That's certainly one answer that's available.
Amber Clayton:
Rue, did you have any other take on that?
Rue Dooley:
Yeah, I mean, it could be disruptive to some organizations. It would be rare, and in our country, in the United States of America, that is, because the different rules apply different places, but since we're talking about the elections here this year... I would encourage most employers who can, and most can, to be flexible about allowing people time both to vote and to work. In most states and environments and organizational cultures, people want you to vote anyway. And in our country, it's your civic duty. So go ahead and ask for the time if you're not already provided the time. In some states they say, "Hey, look, your employer has to give you a couple of hours off if your shift starts during voting hours."
Amber Clayton:
Well, that's actually something I wanted to talk about was the state laws and the time off to vote, and the use of PTO. And Jennifer, you mentioned that state laws vary on this. And that's a question that comes up pretty frequently in the knowledge center is, "How much time do I have to give off for someone to vote? And how do I verify that they voted or can I verify that they voted?" What type of advice or guidance would you give to employers with those types of questions?
Jennifer Chang:
Well, as to Rue's point, I really do think employers should be encouraging employees to do their civic duty. Most states do offer time off to vote, and employers can look at those state regulations. Typically, it's between two to three hours. Sometimes the state will allow employers to require employees to go at the beginning of their shift or the end of their shift so they don't really interrupt operations. But it's certainly very important for everyone, regardless of the election season, but particularly this season.
Amber Clayton:
So are you saying that employers should encourage voting for who the employer thinks is the best candidate?
Rue Dooley:
No.
Amber Clayton:
That happens. We've heard that before from members, where the employer has leaned towards one side or the other, and that has become a conflict for the employees. So how would you recommend an employee to either deal with that, or employer, who wants to be able to say, "This organization is Republican and we want to vote for this candidate"? Rue, you want to take that one?
Rue Dooley:
Sure, sure. Let's go straight to the heart of the matter. Everybody gets to... This is what makes democracies work, is that everybody has their way of seeing things and their preferred policies passed, right? And so that who they want to represent them, they get to elect. So employers should generally avoid, as much as they possibly can, endorsing one side in a political election, much less coercing or forcing, or giving the appearance of forcing or coercing, employees to vote for one side or the other. There are a million reasons why they should avoid that. Real quickly-
Amber Clayton:
I was going to say, don't give me a million, just give me [inaudible 00:09:11]
Rue Dooley:
I'll just give you one, right? You don't want to alienate employees who hold different views. We don't need to go much further than that because from that stems a whole bunch of other problems or potential problems. So it could also really risk the reputation of an organization. So if an organization that satisfies clients or customers or members, or whatever, from different political belief systems decides it wants to take one political stance, it can alienate your customers, your clientele base. It can affect revenues, and on and on. I told you I wasn't going to give you a whole bunch of reasons. But so, what does an employer do instead? Well, what they do is just focus on the civic engagement, focus on the act of voting itself. And if an employer wants to say, "Here are our values, here are the things that we value..." Whatever they happen to be, without a political slant, they can always communicate that in their quarterly meetings, their staff meetings, whatever, with employees, and that might provide the education employees need to vote in alignment with company values.
Amber Clayton:
So a member question that we received was, they wanted to know the rules around sending a political email about abortion to all staff. And we know that was a hot topic over the last couple of years. Can you talk to us about what are those rules, if there are any rules, about sending political emails? Either from the employer standpoint or from the employees.
Rue Dooley:
So I am interested, Jennifer, in hearing your perspective on this one. But coming from me, yeah, no, that's not okay. Not that it's unlawful, but it's not okay for a number of reasons. And again, I won't bore you with all of the reasons. But one reason is because it can be, anyway, such a polarizing topic by itself that if it doesn't have to do... If my company makes and sells widgets, even if leadership in the organization has a certain opinion, maybe my company shouldn't be holding and disseminating opinions about polarizing topics that have nothing to do with the efficient, effective development and production of widgets and the selling of these for the purposes of revenue. In other words, it ain't got nothing to do with what we doing here, so I should probably keep my email to myself.
Amber Clayton:
Well, okay. I'm going to beg to differ on this one because again, something like abortion, even if the company is making widgets, it's still impacting the people in some way, in the organization. So some employees want their employers to take a position on it or take a stance on it. So what do you think about that, Jennifer?
Jennifer Chang:
I think I kind of fall in the middle between the both of you. I think it's important for employers to provide resources to employees, education about perhaps what has happened and how it might affect their benefits, their time off. To your point, last year, a lot of employers were trying to figure out were they going to give time off for people to go to different states, if need be. I also think that we don't want to alienate our employees either, because it is so deeply personal and it's such a personal decision, that employers also just need to be about the business of doing their business. So give the information, but without taking a stand one way or another, I think might be a good approach.
Amber Clayton:
I mean, it's definitely tricky. There's no laws or guidance that specifically says employers should do XYZ, and so they do have to think about their employee population and what they do as an organization. And I would agree, sticking to the resources and being able to provide the information and the guidance without actually saying, "No, I don't agree with this," or, "Yes, I do agree with it." Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but I think when it's coming from the employer, it definitely has a bigger impact.
Rue Dooley:
So Amber, what about public perception? So if I make widgets, right, I want as many people who can be interested in widgets to become interested in them and to buy them, and when they buy them, buy them from me. So if half of the voting population feels a certain way about any polarizing subject, and the other half obviously feel the opposite way, what is the best thing from a business perspective for me to do? As a business leader, what is the best thing for me to do with my employees? Since we're talking about HR, for my employees.
Now, do I say to my employees, "Given recent legislation, we want you all to be healthy, so here's what our benefits offer and here's how you can best take advantage of them," and stop there, period, full stop, blank, new paragraph? Or do I, because I have an opinion, share it in that email? What do I do from a business perspective? What's best for me to do? Because my employees, as you said, want me to be engaged. "Hey, take a position, Rue. You're our business leader. Take a position and hopefully your position is aligned with mine." What do I do as a business leader?
Amber Clayton:
Yeah, and that's, again, a very good question, and I think you're right. And again, I would stick to the business aspect of it. I think if I were going to lose half my business, I'd be concerned about relaying that information to employees or to the population about what my personal thoughts are, opinions are, on a particular polarizing topic. So, no.
Rue Dooley:
But you'd definitely make the benefits that are available, you'd educate your staff about what benefits are available to them? In light of making... Yes?
Amber Clayton:
No, absolutely. I agree with you.
Rue Dooley:
Okay.
Amber Clayton:
So let's talk about the legal protections for a second, because we've gotten member questions and statements. One of them was a member who had contacted us and said that he was concerned about an employee who mentioned something political on LinkedIn. And we had another one that said, it was about a social media post, and what can you put on it? What can you not put on it? The example they provided is that an employee had a Facebook page and had listed where the employee works, and the employee put on there their political views. And other employees saw it and they got offended, and they just didn't know how to handle it. So the other thing we also hear about is freedom of speech. So talk to me about the legal protections when it comes to freedom of speech, social media, and the National Labor Relations Act, which some people might not be aware applies to their organization. So let's talk about those things for a moment.
Jennifer Chang:
Well, I'll take this one, Rue, since you're making faces.
Rue Dooley:
Go ahead.
Jennifer Chang:
That's a humongous question. We could be here for hours. Generally speaking, and I'm not a lawyer, so don't take my word for this, but generally speaking, to my knowledge, freedom of speech allows us to speak about our opinions of the government without recourse, in most cases. A lot of countries don't have that, and we are privileged to be able to have our own opinions and be able to share them. That does not mean that we get to be mean online without some kind of consequence, in some situations. So if an employee is online and identifying themselves as an employee of So-and-so Company, and they are being disparaging and combative and rude and disrespectful, an employer could potentially have recourse there and ask them to either take that post down or speak in a way about their political beliefs that is civil and respectful.
Rue Dooley:
Yeah, that's a good one. The reason I make the faces is because I'm always apprehensive about how to approach this because the answer could be yes, depending on what exactly is going on, or it could be no. So what I try to do to keep it compartmentalized and to organize my thoughts is I try to remember that the NLRA, National Labor Relations Act, what it intends to do for my purposes as an HR professional is to protect the rights of employees both to organize and to discuss, deliberate, contemplate, laugh at, tease work conditions.
So that always begs the question, "What are working conditions? What are they?" Right? So if an employee wants to talk about holes in the wall, they get to do that, even if they do that on social media. No employer wants that, but there's a certain level of protection that an employee has. When it comes to political opinions, employers have to be really careful, especially when we scroll down to closer to local elections and that kind of thing. So if, for example, my candidate, my favorite candidate is a big union person, and I want to push that candidate and I want to talk about unions, then my employer can't do too much about that, even though what I'm doing is from a political slant. And so it makes it a nebulous area for Rue.
Amber Clayton:
So what about, though... And thank you for that. The NLRA, just one of the things, the misconceptions is that people believe that it only applies to union environments or union employers, and that's not the case. And so that's why I wanted to bring that up because there is that conservative protective activity, which does include discussion of workplace issues, and oftentimes political issues can be workplace issues as well. So you're right, you want to be careful about what type of action you might take as a result of someone posting on social media, when it comes to politics and workplace issues. But with the legal protections, how about political ideology? Is that something that's protected under federal law?
Jennifer Chang:
Well, it's not under federal law, but it can be under state law.
Rue Dooley:
You are sharp.
Jennifer Chang:
So it depends on the state.
Rue Dooley:
You do that right off the top of your head? Wow.
Jennifer Chang:
Well, I had that question last week, so it's right there.
Amber Clayton:
But I bet you couldn't name off all the states where that applies.
Rue Dooley:
No.
Jennifer Chang:
No, I could not.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah, that's the one thing. I mean, we are experts in HR in various ways, but oftentimes we cannot memorize every state or local law that's out there, but we will do the research if we need to. So let's talk about campaigning at the work site. That's something that's come up. We've had members who have asked us, "Do we have policies around that? Or around wearing political attire in the workplace?" We've had people ask us if there's a policy language for employees who might be running for political office and not soliciting in the office. One happened to say that their employee's campaign office sent an email to all of the coworkers of this person, and it was their work email address, regarding their campaign. So she was trying to solicit votes from people that she worked with.
We've had people who talk about clothing, buttons, hats. We even had a member who called us indicating that an employee came in with tape over their mouth, and the statement about gun violence, and the tape on the back said, "Politicians are useless." So... Oh, yeah. Mask. At the time when we were wearing mask, people had slogans, political preferences on there. And so what can employers do when it comes to employees trying to campaign in the workplace, whether it's pamphlet distribution, wearing those buttons, hats, tape over their mouth? What can employers do in those particular situations?
Rue Dooley:
All right, so that's another sticky wicket, so to speak, for a whole bunch of reasons. What does it boil down to? For me, it boils down to inclusivity and fostering a respectful environment. If we can think from that backdrop, if we can think from that foundation, how can we be inclusive and foster a respectful work environment for everyone? I think the rules and the policies begin to become easier to develop, and they start to make sense. So there aren't really laws that are written to say to employers, "You can't allow this, you can't allow that, you can't allow this, you can't allow that." Sometimes we wish there were because it would make it-
Amber Clayton:
It would make it so much easier.
Rue Dooley:
Yeah. But there isn't. What we have is the Constitution of the country. And then most states have their own Constitutions. And from that, we can say, "Hey, we can do pretty much what we want, as long as it doesn't violate something that explicitly says Thou Shalt Not." So if we foster an inclusive work environment and we say, "Let's make sure that any statements, whether they are images, T-shirts, buttons, whatever, any communication that we do, let's make sure that it's done respectfully." And make sure we're coming from a place of good faith and that we're not trying to impose an opinion or a perspective.
No matter how strongly we feel about the thing, the workplace is not the place for that. And then we have some formal rules written. Now we can get down to a more granular level and say, in maybe publicly shared environments, so maybe break rooms and restrooms, "Hey, you don't post stuff at all. Nothing. Besides, we want to keep the place looking clean." But maybe in your own personal cubicle you can do some things, but hey, let's not have pictures of weapons, for example. Let's not have pictures that can be disruptive to the workplace or outright insulting to someone.
Amber Clayton:
Well, and I think too... I came from retail healthcare. We always had a dress code policy. The policy required us to not wear shorts with logos or they had a required uniform in some cases. And so having a dress code policy can help to avoid those situations, or at least manage those situations where employees are coming in and they might have something on a T-shirt that might be considered inappropriate or offensive. I think more often than not, we probably hear employers have those policies in place. But again, the inclusivity. You want to be able to allow employees to bring their whole selves to work. And if you can do that without offending or harassing, then of course do that. Do that, but just know how to handle it when it does cross the line.
Rue Dooley:
Yeah.
Amber Clayton:
So one thing that I want to talk about too is participation in protests or riots. I mean, we've had questions from members where they've asked us, "Should marches or protests be considered a paid volunteer day for the employee?" They've also asked us, "How do you handle it when an employee is part of a protest and let's say they get arrested?" So what can employers do in those particular situations?
Jennifer Chang:
Well, that's a big question. We are allowed to protest. That is our right, and if an employee wants time off to do that, then an employer might allow that. As long as it's peaceful. If we start acting out and we get arrested, that's where it gets really sticky. And an employer could really look at how an employee acted and if it would be, not offensive, but harmful to the work environment, and they might just look at that on an individual basis. Hopefully it wouldn't happen, but it could. And then the EEOC has typed out some Green factors, and they could look at those. It just talks about how the employee's conduct relates to work, if it would affect the workplace, how recent it was, all of those kinds of things. But in most cases, attending a protest would not get to that level. I hope.
Amber Clayton:
We hope. But we know we do hear about that. Well, we are coming to the end of the episode today. Any last thoughts for our listeners on political activities in the workplace?
Jennifer Chang:
I think I would just say, at least for the employers and the HR professionals, to look at everyone equally. So not favor one political affiliation over another. So if they're going to ban certain paraphernalia at work, ban it for everyone, or welcome it for everyone, and just put some parameters around that.
Rue Dooley:
So for me, I would say real quickly, I think there are, and I say this every day in conversations with members at some point, three things. You know that you're moving in the right direction when these three things are happening simultaneously. One, you're operating in good faith, you're trying. Two, you're doing what's reasonable to do. Is this reasonable under the circumstances? And three, you're doing what's responsible, making sure that everybody's healthy and safe, right? If you're doing those three things, you're on the right track.
Amber Clayton:
Great. Well, thank you again, Rue and Jennifer, for taking part in this episode. You provided some really helpful information. And for our listeners, a reminder that this podcast is approved to provide 0.5 PDCs towards SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP recertification, if you listen to the full episode. After listening, you may enter this activity ID, 25-WJVRE, again, that's 25-WJVRE, into your SHRM activity portal. Please note that this activity ID will expire November 15th, 2025. And before we say goodbye, I encourage everyone to follow Honest HR wherever you enjoy your podcast. Also, audience reviews have a real impact on a podcast's visibility. So if you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to leave a review and help others discover the show. Finally, you can find all of our episodes on our website at SHRM.org/hrdaily. Thanks for joining the conversation, and we'll catch you next week.