In recent years, an increasingly polarized electorate has been escalating political tensions in the workplace that only promise to intensify in the coming months leading up to the presidential election.
A survey of U.S. workers from late 2022 from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that 24% of workers said they have personally experienced differential treatment (positive and negative) because of their political views or affiliation, up from only 12% in 2019. It also found that 45% of workers have “personally experienced political disagreements in the workplace,” and 26% engage in political discussions with coworkers.
A just-released survey of 1,000 U.S. workers from ResumeHelp found that 51% believe workplace political discussions hurt the work environment. Of those surveyed, 51% never or rarely discuss politics at work, while 45% have regretted having political discussions at work.
Corporate moves in recent years to take progressive stands on political issues, whether reproductive rights, racial justice, gun control, or climate change, have created friction with right-leaning internal staff.
At the same time, left-leaning workers may be increasingly clashing with their bosses. Researchers from Boston College, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago found executive teams across major U.S. firms to be overwhelmingly Republican (68%) and becoming more partisan.
ResumeHelp’s survey found that 23% of workers decided not to apply to a company’s job listing because of the company’s political stance, while a quarter of respondents have left or wanted to leave their job because of their boss’s political beliefs.
“It seems like companies are becoming more politically polarized one way or the other,” Abhinav Gupta, a professor of management at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, told the Washington Post. “When CEOs come out and speak about a political issue or controversial social issue, that essentially speeds up this process of homogenization. It makes employees whose political views are different from that of the CEO feel more uncomfortable, more unwelcome in the company.”
Banning political discussions is believed to likely create a worse impact on morale and be challenging to enforce. Some guidance, however, may reduce the discord caused by differing political views that may impact productivity or work quality. Kara Govro, principal legal analyst at Mineral, an HR and compliance firm, recently told SHRM, “Given how divisive things are now, even if a company has laid the groundwork to ensure its culture is civil and respectful, it may prove helpful to communicate some ground rules.”