Name: Navigating Politics in the Workplace: Election Season Culture & Compliance
Uploaded: 2026-08-11T19:30:09.056Z
Duration: 59 min 59 s
Description: Navigating Politics in the Workplace: Election Season Culture & Compliance

Transcript for "Navigating Politics in the Workplace: Election Season Culture & Compliance": Hi, everyone. Welcome to navigating politics in the workplace. I'm Robert Parsons, and I'll be your host for today's session. Now strong teams and free expression usually go hand in hand, but that teamwork can be damaged when talking about politics in the workplace, especially in today's political climate. Today, we're gonna learn what's protected under NLRA and state laws, how to choose the right approach for your culture, and how you can ensure managers and teams are ready to stay respectful during the coming midterm elections. So before we get in, I just wanna cover a few housekeeping issues here. At the right side of your console, you'll find a docs column that you can click into. We'll have related resources there as well as a printable copy of the slide deck so you can share that out. And then beside that is the q and a column where you can type in your questions. We have a few team members in the back end, and they're helping to provide answers privately. And then we also have a q and a, at the end of this section. Hopefully, we'll have time. We'll be able to get to that. We can't guarantee a response to every question, but all of them are really useful for us and help us create future resources to strengthen your business. So go ahead and enter them in there. Just type in they ask a question and click that arrow. Occasionally, you may see an audience poll come up, especially during an event like this. When a poll opens, a blue alert card will briefly appear at the lower left of your console. You can click the button on it or there's a poll tab that's gonna open up on the right side with a little red dot, and you can view the poll there. There are no wrong answers. It's really just for us to get a feel of where the audience is at, where you are at, so we can talk about some of these different topics. So just select your response, click submit, and you'll receive a confirmation message. Now today's webinar also offers firm or HRCI certification. In order to receive the full or partial credit, you must remain online for at least fifty six minutes or 92% of the promoted webinar session time. We'll try to take you right up to the end there. We have a great lively q and a at the end so that you make that very good. Provided you meet those certification requirements, you'll receive a separate email about twenty four hours after the webinar ends to download your certificate, which includes both SHRM and HRCI credit. Now please note that credit only applies to our broadcast today and not to the on demand recordings that will be available afterwards. And finally, please note this presentation does not constitute legal advice. It's for informational purposes only. And now let's meet today's speakers, Alex Papazis and Rachel Sweeney. Alex has more than ten years of experience in employee relations, people management, and HR compliance. Prior to joining Paychex four years ago, Alex worked in various states across the country, supporting retail companies with new store openings and employee relations. He is currently based out of San Antonio, Texas, and he is FIRM SAD certified. Rachel is an experienced HR professional with more than twenty years in the industry, including more than fourteen years of Paychex. As a strategy and talent enablement partner within the HR center of excellence, she partners with clients and leaders to strengthen HR practices and drive organizational success, staying ahead of emerging trends to deliver innovative business focused solutions. So, Rachel, I'm gonna turn it over to you now. Awesome. Thanks, Robert. We're excited to be here today to explore a topic that is becoming increasingly common in the workplaces everywhere. And, Alex, since we're talking about political conversations at work, let me ask ask you a quick question. Midterms are around the corner. Who are you thinking about voting for? Well, kind of a surprise question there, Rachel. And I think considering the topic for our call today, I'm gonna go ahead and pass on that question and, we'll skip over that. That's a good call. Because as you know, as HR professionals, we know those conversations can get complicated quickly, but not everyone in the workplace approaches them with that same level of caution. Absolutely. That's pretty true. You know, it feels like political discussions are not just popping up around election time anymore either. With social media, tons of nonstop news cycles and a lot of different perspectives out there, these conversations really surface up at pretty much any time every single day. Yeah. Exactly. And while employers really can't control what people think, they can take steps to really foster that respectful, productive work environment when these sensitive topics do come up. Yeah. Absolutely. And that's what we're gonna be focusing on for today, you know, practical strategies for all of our clients on how to navigate political conversations in the workplace while maintaining professionalism, inclusion, and respect for everybody as well. Yeah. Absolutely. And before we dive in, let's get a sense of who's joining us today with a quick poll. Robert, over to you for that. Hey. Thanks a lot, Rachel. And hopefully your camera's working right now. All I see is the great headshot that you've got. So maybe you can turn that on. Maybe you've got the Wi Fi troubles that we experience from time to time. So this poll is coming up now. You should see the poll tab at the right side of your console and also that little blue alert box in the lower left. Just go ahead, open it up, mark your response, and click the submit button. When sensitive politic political or social topics arise at work, what is your biggest concern? Is it, a, preserving a respectful workplace culture? Is it, b, preventing employee relations issues? Is it, c, equipping managers to handle difficult conversations? Or is it, d, balancing employee rights with business needs? So let's see what kind of responses we have here. Alright. I really like where this is at here. Preserving a respectful workplace culture. It really makes sense here, that that is the primary but there's, you know, there's there's answers on all of the, other topics as well. So what do we think about this one? Yeah. I think that's in line with, what we're kind of seeing, every day when we work with our clients. They wanna know how we can we have a workplace that's respectful of everybody and basically do that in a way that minimizes issues from recurring with people. So I think this is pretty spot on for what we see on a day to day. Thanks. Thanks. So why don't you, Alex, cover what we're going to be focusing on today? Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks, Robert. So, hey, everybody. For today, the agenda and what we're gonna be really covering, have it listed on the screen. So understanding employee rights when it comes to today's topic on how to manage, you know, political conversations that occur in the workplace, what company policies that you can have that support your company's stance on this issue. We wanna go ahead and dive into off duty conduct that happens with employees and how that could carry over into the workplace. Wanna make sure we establish clear guidelines for managers when handling these issues. Obviously, when election day is rolling around, how are you gonna handle election day, both the lead up to it and after election day as well? And then finally, wrapping up with how we as a company can go ahead and support all of you. So, some exciting stuff here. Alright. So, first things first, we're gonna go ahead and just jump right into, employee rights before we dive into the other political conversation topics about the workplace. And it's always really important to understand what the foundation of employee rights are when we evaluate these types of topics. So back in 1935, federal government passed, the National Labor Relations Act. We also call it the NLRA. And that was really designed to protect the rights of employees and employers, and really encourage a lot of collective bargaining and unionization efforts as well, and then put in place, a variety of just different guardrails, so to speak, throughout The US economy and throughout the workplace. So, while the NLRA, a good portion of it is about unionization and protecting those types of rights, section seven of the NLRA is incredibly important for businesses everywhere across the country of all sizes because it provides protections to all non supervisory employees regardless if they're in a union or not. And these protections include certain types of employee concerted activity. So, you know, what is concerted activity? What would we consider that? In general, concerted activity takes place when employees act as a group for their mutual aid or protection, as we would say. So this could be activities such as discussing the terms and conditions of their employment, how much each of them are paid in the workplace, what hours are they assigned, benefits, the amount of workload that they're provided, how their managers treat them, dress code, workplace policies. And then now also included on that list, which is why we're mentioning it, protected as well, especially if it relates to working conditions. So that's how we kind of evaluate that. As we're approaching the twenty twenty six midterm elections, it's likely that you're gonna start to, if you haven't already, hear your employees have political conversations in the workplace. So so exactly, you know, how are you supposed to handle these sorts of conversations as a business owner? It's a big question that we, get asked all the time, and we're gonna hopefully be able to answer that question for you today. So, a core component of this and making sure you as a company are established and able to help your employees is a topic of civility. You know, practicing civil behaviors establishes a safe and empathetic work environment where individuals can really contribute their best ideas knowing they're gonna be heard and valued as an employee. According to the Society of Human Resources Management, there are 61,000,000 people that work in The US every day and collectively, all of those workers experience no matter no matter what approach your business has decided to take on the topic of politics in the workplace, when you encourage civil dialogue, it's gonna promote a more supportive work environment. And the way in which you can really do this as a company, is gonna be respecting opinions. So emphasizing the importance of valuing, differing opinions from people, encouraging those respectful conversations. We're also gonna wanna seek to understand, urging curiosity about others' perspectives without trying to change their minds. We always talk about finding shared values as well. That's another fantastic one. Really focusing on common goals or beliefs to cultivate some understanding and respect. And then finally, I love this one as well, promoting mindful communication, encouraging employees to pause and think before they respond, promoting more thoughtful interactions. So, by fostering, you know, respect and empathy, employers can help employees navigate the post election stress that might come up, with resilience. So, monitoring, the political climate is gonna enable employers to offer flexibility and support and help those employees manage any personal concerns they might have while in the workplace to ensure they stay active. This always goes ahead and reinforces the company's commitment to a supportive adaptable workplace culture, during challenging times. So, with that being said, I'll go ahead and I will pass it on over to Rachel. Perfect. Thank you, Alex. Hopefully, you guys can see me now. But one of the big pieces that we also wanna talk about is how to handle this in your company. Because of the NLRA and the other laws such as that anti discrimination or lawful off duty conduct laws, it can be nearly impossible to limit all political conversations in the workplace. And while restrictions on political conversations have the potential to negatively impact workplace cultures and employee morale, Choosing to completely ignore any of those and establish any guidelines around political conversations could potentially lead to any kind of disruptive behavior among employees when those disagreements do arise. So it's safe to say that employers really are challenged by navigating the interchange of employee political expression, workplace culture, and then, of course, the law. Now that being said, what we would like to focus on today are a few different approaches that you can consider for dealing with political conversations and expression in the workplace. I do want to say this before we go on, that these approaches are certainly not a one size fits all approach. The right approach for your company is going to depend on specific business and and company culture. In some cases, it's going to depend what state or jurisdiction you're in, and they should really be consistent with your current policies and procedures. We're going to start with a high tolerance approach, which supports and allows political discussion in the workplace, followed by a neutral and then also a low tolerance approach. So we're gonna kick it off with that high tolerance approach, and this is allowing political discussion in the workplace. Now in work environments with cultural norms such as inclusivity, respect, professionalism, along with established policies and procedures, a high tolerance approach to political conversations could be appropriate. Now you know your companies best. In such environments though, there is often a sense of trust that employees are going to hold these conversations in both a respectful and inclusive way, just like Alex Papazis mentioned about the civility. Now if you think that this is the right approach for your business when it comes to managing political conversations, it is important to communicate your company's stance and those guidelines to all of the employees. This transparency is what's going to help really ensure that employees understand what the expectations as election time approaches. Now if this approach is adopted through your company, here's a couple considerations. Election seasons can bring added stress and emotion into the workplace. It's surrounding us all the time. So it's really important for managers to be aware of how that may impact employees regardless of political affiliation. This is also a good time to really reinforce company expectations around respectful behavior and really remind employees that harassment, discrimination, those inappropriate comments will not be tolerated. Leaders, now they need to be modeling fairness and neutrality. They need to recognize that employees have diverse viewpoints, and they need to help create and foster that environment where respectful dialogue is possible. Now at the same time, employees should understand that not everyone wants to participate in these conversations, and that's okay. Workplace discussion should never interfere with productivity or performance or the team's ability to work effectively together. Now we'll move on to the neutral. This approach is somewhat of a middle ground stance on political conversations at work. So there's an allowance of conversation, but certain behaviors may be limited. Employers want to limit the possibility of certain political dialogue in the workplace. Now with this approach, it's still critical for employers to communicate those expectations and anything that may be off limits. You have to make sure that you're communicating that clearly to everyone and consistently to everyone. Some examples that I've seen from previous clients, you know, limiting distribution of political materials and common work areas, limiting discussions of politics in front of of customers or visitors or while using company property, limiting email, chat groups. However, keep in mind that there are certain state or local laws that can establish politics as that protected category. You can also limit or or say that it's off limits to do any kind of support for political parties or candidates, requesting that. You can also do, avoid singing sing singling out certain topics that may cause morale issues or discrimination claim. This is really important. You so some examples of topics may include racial equality, gun control, LGBTQ plus rights, immigration, right to life, pro choice. Those seem to be more seemingly controversial topics, so make sure that you are being consistent with those as well. And with previous stance, the best approach an employer really can take is to communicate any guidelines and expectations with your employees. Keep in mind, they need to remain consistent with your existing company policies, including that anti discrimination, that non solicitation policy. Alright. Over to our third approach, and this is a low tolerance stance, one that is prohibiting or limiting most political discussions in the workplace. Now although an employer is generally within their rights to prohibit most political discussions in the workplace, it's still important to understand the risk involved with taking this approach. Not only can this approach make employees feel untrusted, but it could also lead to feelings of exclusion, potential discrimination claims. So it may also be difficult for an employer to determine what is exactly considered political versus what's not. For example, prohibiting discussion on some of the topics that I discussed on the last slide about racial equality or LGBTQ rights, they may feel like an employer is prohibiting a discussion about human rights versus politics. So you have to tread lightly. There's also, a misconception with freedom of speech and that all speech is protected in all places. However, the first amendment right to freedom of speech does not extend to private employers. Under federal law, private employers are free to regulate speech in almost any way that does not conflict with that section seven of the National Labor Relations Act or additional protections under federal, state, local laws. Now we are gonna talk a little bit more about this in, in our presentation next, but just keep that in mind. Now if you feel that this approach may be best for your company, like all the other previous approaches discussed, it's still critical to communicate guidelines and expectations with your employees. Now it's imperative to keep section seven of the NLRA in mind as the company should not prohibit conversations that would be protected under that NLRA, and they should not limit employees' ability to engage in any kind of off duty political activities. There also may be some anti discrimination laws that need to be considered as well. So keep all of that in mind if you feel like this is the best approach. Now as we wrap up our discussion on the different approaches to take with political conversations in the workplace, I do wanna note that no matter which approach you feel is best for your company, it's still recommended to conduct refresher trainings on anti discrimination, non harassment, my favorite handbook policy if you can have one, standards of conduct policies. Doing this will also help with any risk that employers may face when really managing these political conversations. Additionally, it may be appropriate in certain situations to seek legal counsel for assistance if needed. So now that we've talked through some of the approaches to consider for your business, I'm gonna go ahead and turn it back over to Alex to talk in more detail about some of the state and local laws that may need to be aware of as well. Awesome. Thanks, Rachel. Appreciate it. Alright. So as you mentioned, you know, there are those federal laws that you must comply with. But depending on where you operate as a company, there is always additional state or local laws that have to be complied with that are layered on top of those federal laws that make it difficult. So, you know, we've discussed, section seven of the NLRA, I think, in five different slides now, so that's been hammered home. But those state and, local laws are the ones that can really get you if you're not paying attention. So, it's important to consider if any other regulations may come into play that provide additional protections to employees. Now, there are some states out there that consider political affiliation a protected category. So, political discussions could open up employers to discrimination charges possibly if that, you know, political discussion begins to involve issues related to race, age, color, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, any other protected characteristics. So something to really, pay attention to. Employers, also need to be conscious of their responses to political discussions and ensure that they're consistent to help mitigate any potential employee discrimination claims that they might receive. And for employers who operate in multiple states or have remote employees located across the country in different states, that makes it even more difficult and it's very critical to make sure that you're familiar with all of those different types of laws. You know, for example, across a bunch of different states we've seen an uptick in what we would call a captive audience law, passed in a couple different jurisdictions and basically what this is is these laws prevent employers from requiring employees to attend any meetings during working hours where the company might be discussing, a political, a religious, or a non union related topic. So employers should always be very careful and tread lightly when engaging in those discussions because there's some legal protections on a state level. You know, an example for the state of New York that they passed another type of law. And it prohibits discrimination as a result of, we would say, quote unquote, an individual's political activities outside of working hours off the employer's premises and without, use of the employer's equipment or other property if those activities are illegal. So So you have to really make sure that employees engaging in those, you know, off work activities that you don't discriminate, in any type of way against them. In addition to the federal, state, and local laws, there are many company policies that may help provide guidelines for how you navigate those political conversations in the workplace as well. Rachel kind of alluded to that in her prior slides as well and these should always be considered when implementing your policy around, political conversations in the workplace. So, we'll go ahead and we'll talk a little bit more in detail about that. Alright. So, establishing standards of conduct. In general, it's gonna be important that employees know the conduct that's expected of them And for that reason, employers should have a policy outlining those standards of conduct. Just verbally communicating it to your employees is not enough. So this policy should provide examples of misconduct that would be grounds for a possible disciplinary action or even a discharge from employment. It's also important to point out that the list of examples that we would have here, it's not all inclusive. You know, the policy should reiterate, the employer's position that employment is still at will employment, if applicable under specific state laws. So enforcing these standards can help with some of the behavioral issues that might arise during election season. As you kinda see on the slide here, some examples of that inappropriate conduct would be, you know, refusal or failure to follow safety rules or procedures, excessive tardiness or absences, solicitation, a fellow employees on company premise during working hours. So that would be, you know, campaigning for a certain political party or something of that nature. Failure to dress according to specific company policies, and then use of obscene or harassing language in the workplace as well is something we would see added into standards of conduct. And then, you know, continuing on, like I said, this is not an exhaustive list but these are all great things to have on. Here's some additional violations that we would potentially add. So, taking or destroying of company property, possession of hazardous or dangerous property, so think firearms, weapons, chemicals, fighting with or harassment of a fellow employee, vendors, or any of your customers, and then refusal or failure to follow directions, or to perform a requested or required job task. The goal here essentially is you want that standards of conduct policy to be very broad. So, almost anything that is out of step with the company's professionalism stance could fall under that standard, of conduct. So, that's really important. And, so, having these in place for on duty conduct is great. Let's go ahead and get into what happens with, employees potential off duty conduct and that's something we need to always discuss. So, your employees may choose to participate in certain types of off duty activities during an election year. You know, you can think about different rallies or protests they might attend And it's really important for employers to know there's several states, you know, California, Colorado, New York, North Dakota is another one as well. And some additional jurisdictions that prohibit employers from retaliating against employees who are engaging in any type of political activities and lawful conduct related to these demonstrations. As I mentioned before, in the State of New York, it prohibits employers from discriminating against employees who are engaging in legal political activities outside of working hours. So, it's really important to pay attention to that and make sure you as an employer are not overstepping. Employers also need to consider different state laws prohibiting retaliation against employees for other, lawful off duty conduct and how those laws may limit you as an employer's ability to take employment action against any type of employee who's participating in those activities outside of work. Even some state constitutions, they also provide certain types of privacy protections which would prevent a private employer from monitoring an employee's off duty conduct. So, usually, it's unlawful for an employer to intrude or seclude an employee in relation to the privacy of an employee when they're off duty. So, you know, entering the employee's home or asking about an employee's private life those could be protected activities you don't want to really cross over that threshold into that area. So, employees of public employers have constitutional rights also that protect them from most employee monitoring. Now, if an employee issue arises, you will want to assess whether the activity interferes with the employee's job performance or if their off duty conduct is merely just a recreational after hours activity. So, consistency and enforcement of this policy is crucial to avoid any types of discrimination claims as we know this is a very difficult area to navigate. Alright. Additional policy that is great to have on file, is gonna be the dress code policy. So, the time leading up to an election can often lead to employees wearing different types of political attire or clothing with potentially controversial messaging, listed on it, and they'll bring it into the workplace. And that's gonna leave different types of employers unclear on how to address it. Ultimately, employers are allowed to dictate which attire is appropriate in the workplace, and how to regulate that during working hours and different types of dress codes. So some workplaces might ban, clothing that has certain types of graphics or slogans on it regarding political issues, which generally solves for the political clothing question right off the bat. But employers that have a more lenient dress code or in some cases, no dress code at all, they need to consider the benefits of implementing a stricter guideline to kind of outweigh the potential negatives. An example I'll give you is, last election cycle, I was working with a client who had an employee who kept coming in and wearing political slogans on their shirt that might be controversial to some And some employees would come to the client and they would complain, but the client had no dress code policy on file. So, when you're in a situation like that where you have no policy to fall back on, if you're singling out this person and saying, no, you can't wear that shirt because I don't like the words it says or or this or that, that person has more of an opportunity to file a discrimination claim. When you have a policy that's drafted, written, and been distributed to all the employees, you as an employer can fall back on said policy and point out the specific violation. So it doesn't look like you're just picking and choosing what's allowed and what's not. It's a foundational piece to have for your company. So, if you for some reason don't have a dress code policy right now, don't panic. A couple of things that you wanna go ahead and emphasize in your company's dress code policy, if you're gonna implement one after this call, safety is always gonna be the first thing in those dress code policies. Is there any safety related equipment, or apparel that your employees have to wear to ensure a safe working condition? The next up, we're gonna have consistency listed on there. Make sure the policy is consistently enforced that way you avoid any type of discrimination claims. And then we wanna make sure the policy should be non discriminatory in nature. So it shouldn't be putting the burden on anybody by their protected class. And then finally, you'll address the cultural element for you as a workplace. You can you should consider your company's culture and the impact on employee morale as well when you're implementing a dress code policy. You as a company and different employers, you should remind all employees of existing anti harassment or respectful workplace policies and take action if there's any type of complaint about, you know, unwelcome, offensive, or intimidating behavior related to this. You know, leading up to the election and even after the election, employers need to communicate clear policies around political apparel and paraphernalia to employees and make sure you're enforcing these policies. It's also recommended that you as a company or employers are diligent about enforcing the same restriction when it comes to other types of possible charitable causes, community events, religious organizations. Basically, you know, anything that is soliciting a certain opinion or viewpoint or something that falls out of line with company policy or practice should all be enforced equally. Incredibly important to emphasize that. So with that being said, I'm gonna go ahead and pass it back over to Robert. He has another poll for everybody. Thank you, Alex. I think that consistency for it can't be underplayed. So, yes, we have another poll coming up. You should see that column open up for for you again, and please just mark your response and click the submit button. Have you ever had concerns about an employee's social media posts? Yes. We addressed it swiftly. Yes. But we weren't sure how to respond. No. Not that we're aware of. And or we already struggle managing business social media, let alone monitoring employees' personal accounts. Social media is, I I think, a very, very hairy issue here. So, really, there's a a a big gap here. We have almost we have more than 50% of people aren't even really aware of employees' social media posts and maybe the impact that has on coworkers, customers, the brand itself. It's it's quite interesting there. What's our reaction to this this poll here? Yeah. It's definitely interesting. And I think for those of you that maybe haven't had anything yet, I'll I'll say yet, because there probably could be something that pops up. So this is perfect timing, to kinda talk through what those social media policies really, really can do for you. Alright. So social media. This is a policy that is going to be crucial for employers to consider, to address social media issues that may arise in the workplace. And, again, based on that poll, maybe not everybody, but definitely some have already had some come up. So these issues, I will tell you now, can be quite complex, and they can be even more so during that election year. So like we mentioned earlier, per the NLRA, whether employees are represented by a union, federal law still gives employees the right to join coworkers to improve their lives at work. And this includes joining together in cyberspace. So Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, who knows what other social media platforms are even out there. That is all included and protected as well. There's also section two zero one d of the New York labor law that Alex talked about earlier, something to keep in mind. So when you're implementing a social media policy, there are some things you definitely wanna consider because, again, these can be very complex. First, you wanna establish overall rules governing social media during working hours, or using employer provided equipment and make that overall and in general not specific to to just, political ties. Next, you wanna maintain confidentiality of company information. So think customer details, intellectual property, any kind of business strategy. You wanna make sure that you're calling out that that has to be confidential. Then another piece that you wanna do is provide clear direction that employees, unless authorized, should not speak on behalf of the company or release contact information of anyone responsible for speaking on behalf of the company. Something that you also wanna consider is behavior expected from employees related to those those pieces that we've talked about a lot, nondiscrimination, nonharassment, nondefamatory language. Any of that cannot be used on social media as well. And then last, establish a policy of nonretaliation for anyone that's reporting social media violations. Now, Alex Papazis, not to put you on the spot, but I do have a feeling that you've worked through a situation on this topic. Do you mind sharing one? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Worked through a lot of them but there's one I think is perfect to kind of share for this scenario. As you mentioned on here and we look when you develop your social media policies, there's a mention on there that an employee shouldn't be, speaking on social media in terms. of them looking like they're representing the company in any type of way. So an example I'll give you, we had a client who was a Pilates studio, and one of their Pilates instructors had a very popular social media account. And on that social media account, it stated that they're a Pilates instructor. It stated where they were an instructor. So, the company's, location and studio was linked. The employee would have apparel on there saying they worked for this specific Pilates studio. So, even though it's quote unquote the employee's social media account, they're promoting and have a lot of ties to the actual company and it looks like they're almost spokesperson so to speak. A lot of happening is in between the videos that this, and Pilates instructor would post about the different classes that they hosted and whatever was going on, they had some very, charged political, discussions and some profanity laced posts related to political topics. And what wound up happening is the employer was now having people drop out of classes, they were losing customers for their business, it was impacting company operations because it appeared like this, instructor was speaking on behalf of the company. So, the company ultimately wound up working with us and we had to work through a way to have either the account totally deactivated, or those posts completely removed or even potentially looking to terminate the employee. Luckily, the company and the instructor were able to come to an amicable agreement that all those posts should be deleted. And that if the employee is looking to speak on those topics, the company is not gonna limit their right to do so, but they can't do so in appearing to be a spokesperson of the company. And that's where we draw the line. So that's a very, you know, specific case, but it ties in really well to this situation. Yeah. That's a great example. I know I had one that was somewhat similar, but not as spokesmanship like, but they were wearing the uniform of, a hotel chain that they were working on, working at while making posts that were politically charged. So with your example, with a lot of examples that we work, and thank you, Alex, for sharing that, they can be quite complex. So really making sure that you're handling them consistency consistently is is key for that, and leaning on support when when navigating these because the law for social media is constantly changing as well as AI is coming into play. So all things to consider. And these guidelines are by no means inclusive, but are typical of social media policies in general. So as an employer, you need to determine what behavior may require action, what behavior may require discipline with respect to employees' social media activity. But remember, your actions should not violate that NLRA provision and should permit employees to discuss terms and conditions of their employment. Alright. Let's move on to voting leave. Now most states require that employees be given time off to vote. Now in many cases, that time must be paid, so it's important for you to really know the guidelines for what states you are currently operating in. Aside from those minimum requirements, employers are also encouraged encouraged to provide flexibility because it is important to employees. Now even where it's possible to vote by mail or absentee ballot, many people still like to vote in person. So it's important not to assume that everyone can or you should be telling people that they should be voting by mail. As an employer, you can do your part, really to encourage voting participation by removing those obstacles or those barriers at work. Now like any state law, there are changes that happen, frequently to voting leave. So make sure that you're taking a look at these. One example, a recent change that went into effect immediately, Colorado, they expanded when employees can use their existing paid voting leave. So while employees have been entitled for two hours of paid time off to vote for for a long time now, they can now use that time on any day, early voting centers are open, not just election day. And we're seeing more and more states and jurisdictions adding that as well, adding that flexibility. So make sure that you are taking a look at that. Now once you establish a voting leave policy, you wanna make sure, like we said on all the other ones, communicate it with all team members and make sure it's being enforced consistently. Some employers choose to go above and beyond the minimum voting leave requirements and treat election day as a paid holiday. I did have some clients that did do that. However, not all businesses can do that. So if your business is unable to provide election day as a paid holiday, a couple other considerations that I've seen clients do is make election a no meeting day or a very light meeting day. Reschedule any meetings that may not be necessary or urgent. You could also move meetings to allow the most time for voting and or even shorten meeting time if possible. Definitely work with managers to accommodate absences due to voting because there are those laws that are coming to play. And make sure you're trying to provide as much paid time off as as reasonably possible, for employees needed to vote. And finally, make sure that you're trusting employees' estimates of how much time it is is reasonable or sufficient for them to cast their vote. You never know how long the lines may be. Now sometimes it's not just about establishing and communicating your policies to your staff. You really need to get that leader and manager buy in, so let's make sure that we're talking about that. It is going to be super important to have consistent messaging and expectations among your leaders when it comes to addressing these policies, but all policies because most likely, they're going to be the ones that are really responsible for that enforcement and that communication. They will also need to be examples for the other employees. That's why making sure that you're setting expectations for your leader is crucial. As the employer, you'll want to consider providing guidance for your managers for a few things. First, this is a good opportunity to remind managers of a few key responsibilities that go along with that title and that leadership responsibility. You wanna make sure employees have the flexibility needed to exercise those voting rights while still remaining compliant with state law. Managers should also reinforce expectations around professional social media interactions. Really encourage a respectful and inclusive environment where those diverse perspectives can coexist, but keep an eye on those team dynamics. And now if conversations should start to create tension or distraction in the workplace, managers need to be comfortable to step in and help refocus that that discussion and make it a healthy conversation. A couple more tips. Like I mentioned, managers definitely play an important role in maintaining a respectful, inclusive workplace during election season and all season long. So it's important that they remain neutral. They need to avoid influencing any kind of employees' political decisions. They need to ensure that no employment decisions are impacted by political beliefs or by voting choices. You really need to encourage teams to focus on what brings them together rather than what divides them. Remind managers not to wait when the issues arise. Start having those conversations. Also, something that all managers and leaders need to know is that early escalation to HR or to higher leadership is often the difference between a quick resolution, a quick conversation, like Alex's scenario where we just had the conversation with the employee. It can it can stop it there before becoming a much larger workplace conflict. So now that we've talked through ensuring that you're prepared for election day and those time frames leading up to it, Alex, I'm gonna ask if you can talk through what's going to happen after election day. Absolutely. Thanks, Rachel. So, you know, say election day has, come and passed and you've prepared, every policy you needed to prepare. You attended this webinar to learn, you know, how to handle these situations and what to do. You understand you as a company, what your stance is on conversations in the workplace. Your managers are on page. You did everything right. So, what do you need to be thinking about now once the election happens, post election day, what do you as the employer need to pay attention to? So, you know, it's very possible that after election day, you might see a drop in maybe employee performance or morale. Everybody has different types of political opinions. Something goes one way or another, you never know. So, employees might have that drop in performance. They might be stressed. They might have more distractions around them. Those are things to pay attention to. To assist with countering this, employers can implement strategies to have a more supportive environment and try to boost morale. You know, a couple of them are listed on the screen here of different things you could do. Adjusting work schedules, directing employees to different types of helpful resources. If you have an employee assistance program, try to promote more inclusive practices. You know, however, you need to be mindful of the potential for discrimination claims also when adjusting work schedules or changing deadlines or other things to make sure they're consist you know, implemented consistently, not looking to be, favoriting one person or another. Another key approach is encouraging respectful dialogue amongst your employees. We've talked about that during this presentation. Focusing on mutual respect, finding common ground, all of that's incredibly important. You know, given the heightened focus on issues like inflation, democracy, justice, economic uncertainty, you name it, It's gonna be key to understand how elections can impact employees' mental health and their performance. So, employers should recognize that employees will likely have a range of emotions, very happy, very frustrated, anxious, you name it. So you may make making sure you're prepared on how to handle and address those things. Some other additional things to consider, as I mentioned, those flexible schedules, access to those support resources, all of that is gonna come into play. So when we think about empathy and active listening, you also wanna consider promoting again that word civility in the workplace. It's gonna be crucial to make sure you handle these things effectively. Alright. Next up as well, de escalation techniques. We'll run through this slide relatively quickly. This is incredibly important post election or when you are navigating these political conversations, recognizing those tensions coming up early amongst employees, you know, redirecting everything back to work. That's a great strategy that we always emphasize to our clients. The employees are doing something that's off topic from the task at hand, redirect back to the work every time usually works, making sure you're doing things in a respectful manner so nobody feels like they're being singled out or discriminated against. Resetting those expectations, we talk about the standards of conduct policy you should have, dress code policy, all of those things. Make sure that those are, really out there for employees and they're understanding what to expect. Reaching out to HR when necessary. So if you have internal HR departments or if you're on service with us and you have a assigned HR partner to your account, please go ahead and reach out to them for support so you can make sure you're handling it properly from the start. And then responding consistently. If an employees are bringing up concerns to you, make sure you entertain and look into all of those concerns equally. You're not picking and choosing because, again, you wanna limit those types of, discrimination claims that could come up. Alright. So taking action as well, another great thing we mentioned already, reviewing those handbook and policies with employees, communicating the expectations, preparing leaders. I'm gonna take a quick pause on this point. Preparing leaders is so incredibly important. You as the owner of the business or someone in HR might think you have it all down when you have the policy drafted and you think the communications look great and and what to do when the trainings have been done. But the supervisors or the management who deal with the employees directly on a day to day basis, if they're not in line with what's going on and they do not know how to handle these situations properly, that can get you in a lot of trouble. So make sure those managers are really trained up on this and they know how to redirect employees back to the work or manage those political conversations. That's where we see the the largest amount of issues is when those managers are not equipped to support those employees effectively. And then, obviously, you know, referencing voting leave compliance, making sure employees have that proper time off, and then know when to seek your guidance. As I said before, if you're on service with us, reach out to your HR partner for questions, that's always something we would emphasize. Alright. So, how do we support you? We've put on this webinar. Hopefully, we gave you some good information that helps you feel supported and and ready. But, you know, Paychex and Paycor, they can help you assess your HR needs, tailor an action plan, and assist with implementation of that thanks to our, experts, your HR partners, and our technology enabled platform. So, both of our platforms on Paychex and Paycor, they integrate payroll, benefits, insurance, and HR all into one place to help you connect with your employees in real time, maintain your safety and compliance, automate your HR efficiency, and they also help automate your employee communications as well. So, you know, the six fifty hour library that we have in Paychex Flex and the six fifty hour support center in Paycor, It also makes it easy for, finding different federal and state laws and regulations specific to your business operations. You can generate policies in the six fifty program that we offer as well specifically to this topic. So there's less guesswork in what you need to do, what you need to list in those policies to restrict people or not. And it also will help you with any questions you have on voting leave, off duty conduct, and dozens of other types of state policies. So the six fifty program is fantastic. On most Paycor plans and every Paychex Flex plan with our clients, it provides access to the six fifty library that I mentioned. And then from there, our HR solutions bundles also have the added support and guidance of an HR professional assigned directly to your account to speak with as well. And your HR professional will help, further identify different handbook policies that could be applicable to your business needs. They'll educate you on state specific guidelines. You can also with your HR professional, discuss additional compliance concerns, talk about disciplinary actions that might need to be taken with your employees, terminations, leave of absences, wage and hour questions, you name it. So when you have our technology and six fifty programs in conjunction with our actual HR professional assigned to your account, you have so many great resources there to support you to make sure you're in the best place to succeed as a business. With all that being said, Robert, I'm gonna go ahead and, pass it back over to you. Thank you, Alex. A ton of great information. And thank you, Rachel. Just a lot of great information today. A lot for people to chew on. You talked about, the legal risk. It's so important. You talked about options for businesses as you know, how they manage these conversations. And you brought it home with how Paychex and Paychex can help, which I think is so important. There's definitely a lot to think about, but the information resources you shared are sure to make it easier. So I wanna, you know, talk to our audience here. If you already work with a Paychex or Paychex HR professional, I encourage you to reach out to discuss any specific questions you have with them. They understand your business, your workplace, your culture, your policies, and they can really help you get it together specifically for how it works there for you. And if you're a business leader, you'll have an opportunity in a few moments to let us know how you'd like if you'd like a free consultation to review the needs of your organization if you don't have access to that HR professional right now. So you should see the poll column open up with a red dot. Just go ahead and mark your response and just click the submit button. Would you like to speak with one of our team members about dedicated HR guidance paired with AI enabled technology for your business? As Alex touched on, we have technology tools to help you get there, but we also have real experts, real people backing it up who can understand your situation, and we can really help craft the solutions that'll work best for your business. Because let's face it, not every business is the same. Everybody's different. Every culture is different, and we really wanna make sure that we put together the solution that'll work best for you and for your people. Alright. So we have just a few minutes left for Q & A. I'm gonna keep a close eye on time here. Let's dive into this now. As a reminder, you can send questions with that q a tab to the right side of the, console. And, you know, instead we can't get to them all, but we will be able to get to a few of them here. And I feel like this one's really interesting. Maybe, Rachel, you'd like to take this one on. Alex wants to know who should be involved in determining the company's political stance. And I think this may relate to the the tolerance issue. But does a company do companies have a political stance as well? Yeah. Interesting question. So determining your company's political tolerance is something, really that your decision makers need to decide upon. The company's political stance should probably be kept separate from this piece. And I'm gonna kinda sound like a lawyer even though I'm not one, but it's going to depend on on how you wanna handle this. So who exactly is is involved in this is often depends on a few things. It's going to depend on the size of the company. It's going to depend on the organizational structure for the business. For small companies, it is typically the owner or the CEO. For some of our larger organizations, it could be the owner, along with some VPs or department heads or an HR director. I think most importantly, no matter what, it should be something that's decided at that top level of your organization and everyone's on the same page and then communicated to your workforce accordingly. Again, with those consistent messaging, the leadership preparation, and really making sure you have those policies in place to back that decision. That's great, Rachel. And, you know, you you both have talked about communication quite a bit today. You know, so I wanna get a feel for you, Alex. You know, practically, you know, in your experience, what is the best way to communicate how we as a company wanna handle political conversations? Is there a is that pride and truth method or is there something you've seen that works more consistently than other techniques? Yeah. That's a that's a good question. I would say when we hear when we talk about communication and we we hear this question come up a lot, the first thing that everybody that comes to everybody's mind is like, oh, the company needs to draft like a formalized memo and send it out ASAP to all of the employees and that's gonna cover us on, you know, our stance on political conversations. And I would say it needs to be a lot more intentional than that. I mentioned it earlier in this presentation. The leadership in the company needs to be all on the same page and spoken with first, whether that's going to be via a virtual call, in person, a group meeting, but the leadership team and those frontline managers all need to be on the same page and in lockstep with how the company is gonna manage those political conversations and what their stance is. And as I mentioned, those first, managers, they're engaging with employees on these topics and in the workplace every single day. They hear all of those conversations firsthand. So making sure they're equipped and trained and that they understand the company's stance first is incredibly important. From there, then yes, you'll wanna go ahead as a company. And whether you do this verbally, I am a huge proponent of more so a written method, Inform employees via a formal written policy that's intentional, what the company stances on political conversations, how lenient it is or not lenient. That's the best approach. But as I'll say it again a thousand times over, talk to your managers first, especially those who work with employees directly every single day because that's where we see the biggest friction points with all of our clients in navigating these situations. I love that. And and and I really did like your point you made earlier, Alex, about how you need to not need to. How it's best to address these things immediately. Don't let them fester. Don't let the don't don't let them simmer. And and managers are certainly the people we're equipped to do that. They're on the front line and they're aware. Alright. Rachel, I'm gonna send this one to you, and this this one's from Rachel, which is perfect. My company hasn't had any set policies like the ones mentioned. How do we go about implementing and enforcing them? Yeah. That's a great question, and don't feel alone. There's a lot of companies out there that don't have these policies or haven't needed them. So there's a lot of things to consider and and one that I'm really passionate about. So this is great. So something first you need to decide on which policies may be required for your business in terms of federal, state, and local. Those are those must have policies that you want in there that are required by law. That's that's gonna be your foundation from there. From that point, then you can start considering what policies may not necessarily actually be required, but would be recommended. So as a best practice for your workforce. Some of those are actually policies that we mentioned today in this presentation. So address code policy or that social media policy. Those would be recommended policies, but may not be actually required by law. All of these policies should be put into one hand employee handbook. Now when this is something that is new to your organization, I suggest reviewing with leadership first. I think Alex Papazis just talked about this. We've talked about it a lot. Make sure your leadership team is on the same page. Make sure that they know what those policies are and how they handle those policies. It is crucial that leaders throughout your organization really know and understand them and also ensure that they're enforced consistently. That is a big piece. I saw another question that popped up about time frame of of how how quickly to roll these out. You know, let your leadership team sit with it for a little bit, come up with any kind of questions. Once they have a once the leadership has a solid understanding of these handbook policies, then it can be distributed to the rest of your workforce. Leaders need to be prepared to answer questions that may come come up because they will. There are going to be questions. One other point that I wanna make, an employee handbook is sometimes met with resistance by employees when it's first coming out. So when it's a company that you haven't had these rules, then all of a sudden this company handbook's being introduced, there can be some resistance. So there can be some questions of, like, why now? I really do suggest explaining those federal, state, and local compliance pieces first and then making sure that the employees really, help help provide guidance to them, help communicate clear expectations to the employee. It really is to support the employees just as much as protect the employer. So make sure that they're understanding that this is there for them as well. It's a really good resource, and that can all help build a strong company culture and that feeling of trust between the company, between the leaders, and and with the employees. I love that, Rachel. And I'd love how both of you really emphasized culture, this this culture of respect, and and it applies to all kinds of conversation, not just political conversation. So I think that's really imperative. This isn't necessarily something we're singling out. It's something that's happening right now maybe. But any form of grasp and any form of of of not meeting your company's standard of conduct is problematic, and and that's something that needs to be addressed consistently across the board. So thank you again, Alex and Rachel, for sharing your expertise with us today, and thank all of you for joining us for navigating politics in the workplace. If you haven't yet completed the brief survey that launched previously, we encourage you to complete that now before we close. 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