A new report found that a significant number of employees are filtering their communication at work to keep the peace in the workplace. But in our highly politicized times, there’s a deeper layer to the data to consider.
According to data from MyPerfectResume, 74% of employees surveyed stated that they adjusted their communication at work to avoid conflict with others. Additionally, the study found that 41% of employees felt pressure to align with the company’s stated values or risk exclusion by their colleagues.
Open expression at work is great, but it isn’t without its problems, especially in today’s politically charged environment. The data states that 43% of employees have witnessed or experienced discrimination due to expressing their political views. In addition, 56% of respondents said that “cancel culture” (or least the perception of it) was negatively impacting open expression at work.
Communication and political expression at work
The best workplace cultures encourage open and honest communication. But politics can complicate that a bit. There are a few steps communicators can take to keep open conversation moving at work while working within the constraints that our political climate has put on workplace comms.
Additionally, an environment that suppresses (even unintentionally) employees from speaking their minds can have a knock-on effect that can lead to attrition. But all is not lost for internal comms pros — there are steps you can take to help improve dialogue and avoid situations where people feel stifled due to their politics. They include:
- Be clear about your company’s values, but state that there’s room for everyone. A company’s mission should bleed through in every single message. That’s true even when approaching hot-button political issues or controversies that pop-up in the news. When addressing these sorts of issues internally, comms pros should encourage respectful engagement, with the keyword being respectful. Setting ground rules that work within a company’s value set can let people know that there’s room to express themselves politically at work, but it needs to happen within a given set of boundaries that preserve every employee’s experience.
- Humanize your leaders and equip them to have transparent conversations. When leaders model behavior at work, it can influence employees to follow suit. The study supports this, with 62% of respondents reporting that leaders should lead the way on workplace speech guidelines. Communicators should work in lockstep with leadership to help model their messaging to employees in a way that humanizes them and fosters open dialogue. For instance, communicators can help organize Q&A sessions with leaders in which top brass can address hot-button issues and reiterate the company’s line. Doing this regularly can help bake openness into a company’s culture and break down barriers to open feedback and eliminate fear of reprisal.
- Get your managers involved. Managers function as a critical touchpoint for employees with the rest of their organization. That includes political speech and its impact on team dynamics. Management pros should work with communicators to create guidelines on what kinds of political speech are and aren’t appropriate at work. Give managers the leeway to deal with political talking points in ways they can customize to their team cultures, but ensure that it stays within the mission and values of the larger organization. Helpful resources for managers can include FAQ guides on how to approach political topics that might spring up internally and response templates that reinforce civility and respect for everyone’s viewpoints if discussions about politics do arise.
Source – https://www.ragan.com/internal-comms-free-speech-employee/