Category: Learning & Development

Well, it’s finally election day here in the U.S. It’s certainly been a long road to get here, and no matter what the outcome, the next few days are likely to be pretty emotional for many employees. As our media outlets have grown increasingly sensationalistic, and the two parties more and more polarized and obstinate, the disagreement and animosity have spilled over and we’re now hearing of many tense political conversations at work. In an age when many companies claim to be focused on striving for inclusion, how do people’s party affiliations factor into the equation?

The old recommendation to never discuss politics or religion in ‘polite’ conversation has become untenable amidst a 24-hour news cycle that thrives off of these two supposedly taboo topics. Things have gotten so out of hand that it’s even impacting people’s health and wellbeing. As far back as September of 2019, a survey found that 40% of respondents felt that politics were a source of stress in their lives. Approximately 20% reported losing sleep over it, and roughly the same number noted that politics exacted an emotional toll on them. The numbers are undoubtedly higher now, on the day of the election, and after such extraordinary circumstances in the lead-up. How do you manage all of this as an employer?

Pros and cons of allowing political discussions in the workplace

The overwhelming advice to employees across the board is to simply avoid having political conversations at work at all. Many workers seem to agree. During the also extremely polarized 2016 election season, 79% of survey respondents noted that coworkers are the people they would be least likely to discuss politics with, beating out even neighbors and complete strangers. The logic behind this is difficult to dispute; many people don’t know their colleagues very well, and yet they have to see and collaborate with them every day. If they get into any particularly heated political conversations at work, it can impact both their prospects with that employer, as well as the general office environment due to the increased tension.

On the one hand, you run the risk of employees fighting to the point of not being able to work productively together, and potentially even coming to blows, while on the other hand, completely ignoring the fact that employees are stressed and anxious isn’t a stellar option either. By forbidding employees from expressing themselves or voicing their concerns, they have no choice but to bottle up their anxiety which leads to distraction and disengagement. While in many ways this conundrum requires choosing the lesser of two evils, there are some strategies you can pursue to find some middle ground.

Strategies for enabling healthy dialogue

There are a number of alternatives to stifling and ignoring people’s beliefs without inviting full-on battles into your office. While encouraging political conversations at work outright is likely inadvisable in efforts to prevent anyone from feeling offended and/or victimized, it’s important to at least acknowledge that a big national event is underway. Pretending it’s not happening isn’t going to lead to any sort of positive outcome. Consider the following steps to help support your employees through this charged time:

• Make it clear that the company understands that employees are under immense stress right now. As mentioned above, it’s important to lead with empathy during this time. The election is undoubtedly impacting your employees, so to pretend otherwise is simply tone-deaf. Ensure your managers are being mindful of the stress that their direct reports may be under, and acknowledge that they might not be at their best.
• Don’t ban political speech that otherwise complies with your larger behavioral requirements. Political conversations are going to come up; it’s simply a fact of the current day and age. Banning them and making them punishable simply makes employees feel like they can’t bring their whole selves to work, and sets unreasonable restrictions on employee interactions. Stress that your standard expectations of respect, professionalism, etc. remain in place, but don’t add to employees’ anxieties by threatening termination if they slip and mention something about this huge issue that is undoubtedly on their minds.
• Take a stand against hate as a company. The political rhetoric in this country has reached a fever pitch, but as a company you can still take a stand against hate and in favor of acceptance without it being political. Make sure your employees know you’ll support them no matter which candidate they choose, and offer them security during this highly unstable year.

As has long been the case, political discussions in the workplace are often better when just avoided, but you can still take steps to ensure your employees feel safe and supported. If you’re looking for ways to keep your employees connected during this decentralized time, consider checking out Workrowd. We’ve got solutions for diversity, equity, and inclusion, professional development, social impact, and more. You can reach us at hello@workrowd.com.

One of the key issues the pandemic has exposed is the extreme importance of workplace communication. Companies without strong internal communication processes immediately saw the shift to remote work ratchet up existing issues and break down chains of command. Employees have been left struggling to access the information they need to get their jobs done, and utilizing any and every channel to contact their colleagues with no regard for the time or day. Furthermore, those organizations without a culture of transparency saddled their employees with the added stress of not knowing management’s position on potential layoffs, making it even more difficult to concentrate and complete tasks. Despite all the tools we have to enable communication within organizations, there’s still a lot of operator error in terms of how, when, and what we share.

Numerous studies have found that employees rank transparency within a company as the biggest contributor to workplace happiness. While this may not seem particularly surprising upon first reading, consider it in context of the fact that many organizations look to free food and snacks, happy hours, game rooms, etc. as first line strategies for improving employee engagement and company culture. While in reality, employees believe opportunities to volunteer are more important than these sorts of perks, employees also report that the novelty of these benefits wears off within a few months and it’s really the company culture and feeling safe and valued that drives retention and productivity.

A desire to feel safe and valued in the place(s) where people spend one-third of their lives makes sense; in the absence of these assurances, it’s difficult not to be perpetually distracted and anxious. Workplace communication plays a critical role in this. If employees are constantly wasting time struggling to find or access the information they need, or are experiencing slights from their managers and/or peers (whether real or perceived), how can they feel secure or effective? Instituting productive communication practices can fundamentally alter the company climate, helping to drive key business outcomes. Not the least of these is revenue, as SHRM estimates that poor communication costs the average 100,000+-employee company $62.4 million per year.

With all this in mind, what are some ways to improve workplace communication to boost employee happiness, and in the process increase retention and productivity? The first step is to formally lay out communication procedures and expectations. While it may sound overly cumbersome and difficult for employees to follow, equipping staff with clear and concise guidelines on what to do and when, will actually ease stress and reduce the time burden on employees when determining how to respond in various situations.

This should not be a quick job for one or two people. Take the time to actually evaluate where your company is today, where you want to go, and then lay out concrete steps and policies to help you get there. Designing communication procedures is a great opportunity to engage an employee task force, in order to ensure the new standards have buy-in across the organization.

The next step, of course, is to clearly communicate these policies and procedures to employees. Consider distributing them via email as well as posting them in easily accessible locations such as company wiki/intranet homepages, in a top-level folder on shared drives, or even on the wall if it’s appropriate for your workplace and guidelines. Make sure to engage employees in this process and do not simply hand down the decree without discussion. Take the time to get employee feedback, answer questions, and provide concrete examples of the policies in action.

We encourage you to go beyond just outlining when to use email vs. chat vs. in-person channels, to cover how employees at your company should treat each other, how they should treat customers, and what’s expected of them when they’re out in the community. Give your team the gift of full transparency, so they can do their jobs without the threat of unknown violations and the subsequent consequences. As the saying goes, ‘clear is kind’.

During these frightening and constantly shifting times, it’s more important than ever to ensure that your employees are informed and engaged. If you’re looking for an easy, all-in-one solution to manage employee groups and events, project teams, employee task forces, and more, consider checking out Workrowd and let us know what you think. We strive for a culture of openness, transparency, and constant improvement, so we’re always interested in feedback, positive or constructive. You can reach us at hello@workrowd.com.

While we’ve still got a long road ahead, it seems that we may be seeing the beginnings of light at the end of the coronavirus tunnel, at least on the health front. The impact of this crisis truly cannot be overstated, but we must be resilient and take strategic steps to forge a path forward. Those of us who are still employed owe it to those who have suffered unexpected losses of income to respond swiftly and smartly to rebuild what’s been lost. Towards this end, it’s time for more companies to capitalize on the power and potential of employee task forces.

Many business leaders at this point are dealing with rampant mixed messages and a long list of Catch-22s. The most pressing instance of course, is that in order to keep their companies alive and well, employees need to come back to work. However, in order to keep employees alive and well, they need to stay at home. As we start to envision what the new normal will look like, executives would do well to remember that they have a seldom-used secret weapon to draw upon: employee task forces.

Once we’ve managed to curb the rampant spread of the virus, there will be many deliverables to meet all at once. While a number of them will need to be spearheaded by executive leadership, there will be quite a few others that employees can help move forward. For instance, companies that were forced to furlough and/or layoff employees may have to bounce back from a culture deficit depending on how the cuts were handled. Others may be attempting to redesign an antiquated telework policy, while still others will be looking to restructure part or all of their organization as a result of the changes the pandemic brought with it. All of these are areas where it’s not just helpful for employees to weigh in, but imperative.

Developing effective task forces shares some of the same steps as developing effective employee resource groups, which we wrote about here. It’s important for there to be both buy-in and strategic vision from the top, so that the ideas and plans the task force devises actually get implemented. Accordingly, some form of executive sponsorship will help ensure that the team has the leverage they need to get things done. If you can’t find a high-level colleague to champion the task force, it is a clear sign that the objective in question isn’t important enough to the organization to warrant employees’ time at this point. Nothing is a bigger morale killer than having people spend time on something that immediately gets shelved, so do your due diligence upfront to ensure that you’re setting employees up for success.

Beyond having high-level support and engagement, it’s important to recruit the right mix of people to drive your task force. For starters, it is crucial for the task force to be comprised of folks from a variety of different departments so they can socialize the group’s progress across the company. Additionally, members should be dynamic and active players within the broader organization who are excited about the work to be done and prepared to share their passion with their colleagues. Front line managers will likely have the highest motivation to make changes as they feel they will benefit their employees, but make sure the selected individuals are respected leaders who can rally the troops. Change is hard and uncomfortable for most employees, so without charismatic leaders to communicate the value and importance of the new initiatives while simultaneously calming fears, the task force’s work may be met with resistance and fail to gain traction.

Just as with your ERGs, employee task forces can drive positive change within your organization from the bottom-up, as long as the right supports are put in place. As we head into a new, post-outbreak era, it is time to move away from fully top-down, authoritarian processes and give employees the autonomy they’ve been seeking. Assemble and empower employee task forces to help you build a healthier, more successful organization coming out of this crisis.

If you’re intrigued by the idea of employee task forces to help grow and improve your organization, we encourage you to check out Workrowd as a way to launch and manage your various groups. We’ve got all the tools your employees need to collaborate, along with administrator settings for you and analytics to give you ongoing insight into the process. You can reach us at hello@workrowd.com.