Election day tensions so high some employers grant remote work week
In the months leading up to the U.S. presidential election, managers have reported increasing incivility in the workplace over politics — so much so that many are having staff work from home on election day, and even election week — with an immediate outcome unlikely.
Four in 10 managers will have staff work remotely during election week, according to a new survey from ResumeBuilder among over 1,000 U.S.-based managers. About 30% say the election has caused conflicts among employees, and 70% fear tensions will escalate post election, that survey found.
Managers are dealing with strained relationships, verbal altercations, and ultimately, a decrease in team cohesion. They say disagreements over politics are distracting employees and reducing overall output. About a fourth of staff have refused to collaborate with coworkers holding different views, and have asked to work remotely as a way to avoid potential conflict, according to that report.
ASTRSK, a boutique agency with 20 employees and an office in downtown Manhattan, plans to close its office on Tuesday and Wednesday, and allow staff to work from home. Staff work on a hybrid schedule, typically coming in on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“We’ll kind of see what happens next week, and if we’ll even be coming on Thursday or not,” said ASTRSK president, Lisa Horton.
Many of the agency’s staffers are Millennials or Gen Zers who are vocal and passionate about social issues. “This is just very clearly the most politically, socially, economically charged presidential election in our lifetime, let alone possibly ever. And we really want them to feel like they can be where they need to be, whether that’s creating a safe space for themselves or being with friends or family or whatever it is that they need based on the election outcome,” Horton said.
“We tend to always have like-minded people that are working together at the agency, so I think naturally there’s an environment and a culture where people feel safe to kind of express those opinions,” she said. “So no one has necessarily felt unsafe to come into work or anything like that, but it’s more so about really protecting everyone’s mental and emotional space.”
Jillian White, an account executive at Inkhouse, a strategic communications agency, plans to work from home next week on at least Tuesday and Wednesday. She’s on a hybrid schedule, where staff typically work from the office three days a week. Staff were told they can choose if they’d like to work from home next week, she said, though the office is closed on election day to allow staff to vote. She commutes to her office in downtown Manhattan from Brooklyn, and anticipates at least some disruption on election day and potentially the rest of the week.
“I feel like it’s one of those tough things where no matter how it goes, the night of the election, it’s going to be an ongoing issue that spans days, if not weeks or months,” White said.
“I’m kind of anticipating taking next week in stride and taking it day by day. I’m not expecting anything to be clean and easy, so I’m just kind of giving myself a little bit of grace and communicating with my teams if I need some extra support,” added White.
“I think anytime there’s a significant emotional event, it’s a psychological distraction from what’s right in front of us,” said Joseph Grenny, founder of workplace education platform, Crucial Learning.
Grenny often works with organizations to assist with conflict, and lately politics have been a frequent source of this conflict. “The general sentiment that I see is people are handling it defensively,” he said. But ultimately the problem isn’t going away anytime soon, he said.
“The problem is as old as people not giving candid feedback to their direct reports, not solving problems with peers, gossiping instead of directly confronting challenges,” he said. Having candid conversations around various topics in the workplace have long been considered risky, and best avoided, “but the consequences for organizational performance are profound.”