Politics in the workplace during this polarized time

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In April, Google CEO Sundar Pichai concluded a company blog post with a section titled "Mission First" and called on Google employees, a population of around 180,000 spread across the globe, to "work, collaborate, discuss, and even disagree." At the time, around 30 employees had just been fired for protesting the tech giant's contracts with Israel and its military.

"This is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe," Pichai wrote in the post. "When we come to work, our goal is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. That supersedes everything else, and I expect us to act with a focus that reflects that."

A few days later, CNN reported that the count of people fired grew to 50. The protesters, affiliated with the No Tech for Apartheid advocacy group, say that the Google employee protest was a "peaceful sit-in" and that the firings were retaliatory.

Discontent over political issues among co-workers can play out in less public but equally damaging ways in all kinds of workplaces nationwide. Emily Garrison, a high school teacher in Arkansas, told Newsweek that she tries to remove herself from political debates at school, but that it's not always possible.

"I believe heated and hostile political debates among teachers do not benefit our students, so I avoid direct political discussions," Garrison said. "One of the most recent, aisle-dividing disagreements [in the teachers' lounge] is the controversy about Republican-supported school vouchers."

Garrison told Newsweek that she feels "vouchers predominantly benefit wealthier families" and hurt students in rural and low-income areas. She also mentioned subsidized lunches as another issue that gets divisive. "I was that student. As someone who grew up in poverty, I find it deeply personal that Arkansas has failed to address the issue of free school meals."

South Carolina entrepreneur Sergio Lopez also prefers to keep his political views out of the workplace, but finds that isn't always practical with his customers. For Lopez, co-founder of 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu Greenville, maintaining a "neutral, almost absent stance publicly" seemed like the best way to grow his young business. But many of his clients at the martial arts training facility asked them to weigh in "on certain 'hot-button' political issues, such as abortion, immigration, LGBTQ," Lopez told Newsweek. "We were not in the business of political lobbying, and it was not our job to educate our members on the issues being discussed in the election leading up to 2024. Some of our members agreed with this stance while others did not and ultimately took their business elsewhere."

Whether it's in schools, tech companies, hospitals, auto shops or accounting firms, no workplace is immune to the shifting dynamics playing out in the general public; people are disagreeing more, tuned in to echo chambers and increasingly believe that those with differing views are bad people. A 2022 Pew Survey found that 72 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of Democrats feel that members of the other party are more immoral, and the number of people saying that members of the other party are dishonest, unintelligent and lazy has also spiked since 2016.

The office used to be a politics-free zone, in part because before smartphones it was much easier to avoid the news during working hours. That's no longer the case. According to a February survey by the human resources trade organization SHRM, a third of workers expected workplace conflicts to get worse in the next year. And the anticipation of politics-related stress at work nearly doubled in the five months leading up to the 2024 U.S. election, according to BetterUp, a well-being platform whose own findings noted that two-thirds of people who report overhearing political talk at work several times a week have a desire to avoid certain co-workers.

"We rely on lots of interpersonal collaboration to do modern knowledge work," Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, MD, BetterUp's chief innovation officer, told Newsweek. "It's going to interfere with both our productivity and our enjoyment of our jobs."

That was the case for the politically conservative Lopez. Before opening his jiu-jitsu studio, he worked at a financial services company in the Midwest. There, he "never quite felt comfortable opening up about my own beliefs for fear of retaliation or being ostracized from company social events," he told Newsweek.

And for many people, their stress or inability to focus isn't just a matter of dealing with "politics at work." Some are preoccupied with concern for the lives and safety of loved ones.

"If you're Lebanese or you have family in Lebanon, you can't leave the fact of what's going on there outside the door," said Rachel Marcuse, COO of HR consulting firm ReadySet. "What we can do is equip managers to have supportive conversations, to listen actively and empathetically, even when they may not agree."

Regarding the 2024 election results, Marcuse notes that "people of color, women, queer people, trans people have a high level of stress with the unknown, how it's going to play inside a workplace and whether the outside world will breed environments inside organizations that are unsafe for them." But even those supporting the winning party can feel the effects at work. Jordan Walker, co-founder of Backtrack, a tech company in Florida, was shocked by how quickly "colleagues, friends and supporters I've known for years—seemed to turn their backs" on him when they learned he was supporting Donald Trump for president.

Walker, 29, told Newsweek that his political choice "led to weird arguments, created strained work relationships, awkward tensions and even a noticeable drop in social media support."

Racial relations can get political in the office, too. LeRon L. Barton, an IT consultant, told Newsweek by email that in "nearly every business environment I have been a part of, my race has been a factor." In a May op-ed for Newsweek, Barton shared stories of stereotyping by colleagues, including making jokes at his expense, and losing friends for being vocal about the impact of police violence on Black communities.

"When the shooting of an unarmed Black man by the police turns into a national story, all eyes are on me. I become the authority of all things African American. This can be, and sometimes is, a draining experience."

Similar to the way Barton is targeted for his race, a 2022 SHRM survey found that a fifth of employees say they have been mistreated by their co-workers or peers due to their political views. The most recent election cycle has not done much to alleviate this growing workplace dysfunction. In October, SHRM released another survey showing that 47 percent of employees said political differences contributed to workplace incivility, and 68 percent said their managers could have done more about the issue.

"Political talk in the workplace continues to negatively impact both mental health and productivity for a significant portion of front-line workers," BetterUp's Kellerman said, citing November data from her company. It found that almost half of individual contributors said the election had a negative impact on their mental health. Just over a third said the election negatively impacted their productivity and focus.

A workplace survey originally conducted in January by Harris Poll and the job site Indeed was run again in July to gauge trends in this arena as the election neared. Its more recent version found that nearly one-third of employees would consider working elsewhere if their CEO expressed political views they disagreed with, and 28 percent said they would do so if they had a political disagreement with a co-worker.

Walker, the Florida tech entrepreneur, told Newsweek: "If someone chooses to no longer be my friend or refuses to work with me because I exercised my right to choose what I believe is best for myself as a Black entrepreneur, so be it. I've learned that I can't control others' reactions, but I can control how I respond."

"This has an impact on the bottom line for employers," Marcuse said. "Instead of hiding our heads in the sand we want to name some of the elephants in the room."

What Can We Do?
Experts interviewed by Newsweek for this story broadly agreed that the keys to overcoming political workplace disputes are: proactive, consistent communication; seeking out common ground; and, most importantly, listening and learning.

"We live in a polarized time where it's increasingly important to ensure that people are respectful even if they completely disagree," Michael Franklin, co-founder and executive director of Speechwriters of Color, a communications and training nonprofit, told Newsweek. "After the election, because of how polarized things have been, there's been a ton of emotions," Franklin said, "a ton of feelings from folks just worrying about what's next."

Working with communications firm Axios HQ, Franklin produced an election-readiness guide for corporate leaders this fall, which is applicable well beyond the election itself, that included frameworks for promoting healthy discourse.

The guide contains advice from communications pros like Franklin and former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, as well as a wide range of executives, offering their thoughts on inclusion, maintaining a respectful environment and engaging in noncontroversial topics like well-being, voting and gathering employee sentiment.

Communicate. "Organizations aren't some undefined entity. They're made up of real people who are processing and living through real moments, too—and starting with internal communication recognizes and respects that," said Franklin.

For situations where tempers are high, Jamine Moton, a former police officer and founder and CEO of a security business in Atlanta, shared the benefits of "verbal judo," a nonviolent de-escalation tactic taught in police training.

"Words have power, and what you say to someone in conflict has the ability to either trigger them or bring them down," she explained. "You have to want to connect with the person."

Even if many experts recommend that company leaders acknowledge certain political realities, that doesn't mean that workplace conversations should become a free-for-all. Not every conversation can lead to a productive dialogue.

Recent survey data suggests that businesses should be selective about which topics to engage. An August Gallup survey found that people are most interested in hearing from businesses about climate change, mental health and free speech, and least interested in companies weighing in on religion.

"We want to talk about what's impacting our employee base, our customers or our clients. If we're going to choose what we're going to talk about, it's those issues, or something that's core to our values," Marcuse said. She recommends directing resources toward front-line managers, on topics like "communicating across differences."

Guidance for leaders should make it clear that they play a large role in their team's culture, and that includes the question of how political issues are discussed at work, how differences are managed and the amount of consideration for employees' mental health.

Find common ground. There's no getting around it: It's necessary to engage with colleagues, and other work associates, who have differing opinions.

"We have to learn to listen to things that we don't agree with, that is the first step to building and changing the culture," Moton said.

Lopez agrees. He believes Americans should be able to interact more freely with those with differing views. "America was founded on the idea of being a melting pot, not just of different people, races and ethnicities, but also a melting pot of different ideas, beliefs and ideologies."

Kurt Gray, a psychology professor with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of the upcoming book Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground, said that helping people discuss the things they have in common is the best way to overcome differences. At work, an obvious starting point is that you're at the same company and are aligned to do your jobs in the context of the company's mission and goals.

"At the end of the day, liberals and conservatives are not that different. We're all trying to protect ourselves. We're all trying to protect our family," Gray explained. When people anticipate a certain level of confrontation, there's a real risk that they'll find it. "A lot of the times when people have these conversations about politics, they go in feeling threatened," Gray added. "They go in trying to beat someone on the politics. If you've got to work together, no one wins when you try to win."

George Vergolias' counseling company R3 Continuum supported clients through the Dobbs Supreme Court decision and the Israel-Hamas conflict and partnered with the Washington, D.C., police in the mental health response to January 6, 2021. He, too, emphasized the need to relate to one another.

"We're doing things called facilitated discussions, where we would be brought in and act like a mediator, not to get different sides to agree, but just to get them to share their common humanity," Vergolias explained. "And just to be able to get the conversation back on track to a reasonable level of discourse."

Listen and learn. Management may want to consider dedicating staff time to staying informed about the range of issues that may be affecting different groups of employees.

"I found myself following the politics and watching the news every day so that I can stay on top of it and show up with our team and our clients in the right way," Moton shared.

Employers must also consider offering multiple avenues for employees to discuss their issues or concerns around political disagreements. This can be done through employee resource groups—where colleagues with shared backgrounds or interests can congregate with others who may be aligned over a topic in a smaller setting—and surveys. It's also important for employees to speak up when political disagreements turn threatening. Leaders need to hold team members accountable if they're crossing the lines of respectable behavior.

"We want to make sure that issues of discrimination and harassment are escalated appropriately, whether or not they're meeting the legal definition," Marcuse added.

But there are many kinds of workplace clashes which can have major consequences for a business even if they don't become legal matters.

"We see these conflicts or tensions emerge in two ways. One is the overt way, where people are just hostile," Vergolias explained.

"The other is more insidious," he continued. "It's more covert. It's more passive-aggressive. You get social withdrawal. You get disengagement from team building or team collaboration."

Stephen Paskoff, an ex-Equal Employment Opportunity Commission attorney and founder of ELI training firm, added that leaders have a particular responsibility to listen and demonstrate the value of accepting others' viewpoints. They should set the example. "If you're having a talk of any value, it's got to be a dialogue, not a diatribe," Paskoff said. "If you're not willing to listen, you have nothing to say."

Back to Reality
In the future, we can expect to see more tension, more scandal and maybe more polarization; maintaining an always-on effort toward respect and coaching through conflict in the workplace will be crucial. So will a willingness to extend colleagues some grace. After all, if we don't figure out how to get along, things could get a lot worse, in the workplace and beyond.

"People aren't perfect. There has to be a calculation of intent versus impact," Franklin said. Speaking with Newsweek, he advocated for patience when getting into discussions with people who hold different beliefs, even for those who may have offended others. "A lot of folks do not have malintent when they're saying or doing something that may end up upsetting folks internally."

"If something happened to [my kids] and I had to rush them to the emergency room, I wouldn't stop for a second and ask, what's the political affiliation of that emergency physician?" Vergolias said.

"We have some very divisive issues...that could really impact people's lives. I'm not belittling that, but we still engage every day with hundreds of people and we still get on with the business of interacting in a society."