Employers aren’t doing enough to resolve political tension within the workplace

As the 2024 election cycle swiftly approaches, employers face the challenge of how to best navigate political conversations in the workplace. New data released by e-Learning Industry, an international knowledge-sharing platform, reveals that employers aren’t doing a sufficient job of creating a comfortable work environment. 

Many employees’ personal political beliefs are often at odds with that of their company’s. According to the data, 41% of employees disagree with their company’s political statements and 2 out of 5 employees are embarrassed by them. 

One reason that employers’ beliefs often do not align with their employees is that workers’ opinions are frequently left out of the conversation. The study found that 72% of employees reported that they were never asked to share a personal opinion before a company-wide, political statement was made. 

On top of that, many employers fail to provide workers with appropriate spaces and opportunities to openly express their political beliefs. Only one-third of employees said that their company had a political expression policy in place.

Despite the fact that many companies claim to prioritize culture and community among their workers – 64% of employees said that they have engaged in politically-based arguments with their coworkers. Personal political beliefs often leave employees feeling isolated as 29% of workers have lied about their political opinions to feel more welcome within their workplace.

Employees are scared to reveal their political opinions out of fear it will change the way their coworkers and managers view them. According to the study, 45% of employees believe their political opinions could hurt their chances at a promotion or change their manager’s opinion of them. 

So what’s the best way to navigate these complex conversations? 

The study recommends creating compliance standards that give employees a space to share their opinions. Additionally, it’s important to mitigate bias and ask employees for regular feedback. Finally, consider ways to make the work environment more inclusive and provide employees with tools to resolve conflicts when they do occur. 

Related: Workplace political views can motivate employees to change jobs, survey finds

“Most importantly, start building your core company values,” says Christopher Pappas, founder of  eLearning Industry. “To do that you’ll also need to find out what employees want and need from your organization.”