Certain topics are best avoided at work. One of those is politics. Most people have some sort of political stance and when our views clash with others, we run the risk of offending them or being offended.
As a result, a difference of opinion can spiral into disagreements, judgement, and friction among colleagues. This could lead to a range of long-term difficulties like the inability to work effectively as a team, reduced productivity, and in some cases, bullying and harassment.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. If politics is approached with caution and emotional intelligence, these conversations can also encourage bonding, healthy debates, and mental stimulation.
In this article, company formation agent, Rapid Formations, unpacks how politics can affect the workplace. They discuss if there is a place for it among colleagues and the pros and cons. They also suggest some practical ways of managing this subject to promote a safe and healthy workforce.
Should politics be discussed at work?
Generally, it’s best to avoid emotionally fuelled topics like politics at work. It can be an extremely precarious matter to navigate, especially if you don’t know your colleagues very well. Realistically, however, it can’t always be avoided.
A survey by the recruitment platform, Reed, investigates how UK workers feel about discussing politics at work. Interestingly, 60% said bringing it up with your fellow workmates is fine. For 20% of them, it’s a regular part of daily conversions. A further 30% said they only talk about politics ahead of an election.
Having said that, the majority also think that you shouldn’t ask who someone is voting for. This is where politics starts to get personal and presents a risk of offending someone. So, while it may be acceptable to bring it up in a broad way, politics should be approached with caution.
But do people mind disclosing which party they support and who they’re voting for? Like Brexit, it’s effectively an equal split. Just over half of respondents said they were happy to discuss who they voted for and 48% said they preferred to keep that information private.
Those who don’t wish to share their political views said they do so for privacy, to avoid conflict with their co-workers, and to generally dodge the discussion.
Negative impacts of politics on employees
It’s undoubtedly a delicate matter, but politics can have good and bad effects on your employees and company culture. Here are some examples of the negative impacts it can induce:
Division between colleagues
One of the main issues in discussing politics at work is that it can divide co-workers. When people disagree on something, those differences often cause a natural distance between them. Not only can this leave some employees feeling isolated, but it can also make it difficult for them to approach one another.
Building relationships is crucial in the workplace. Your team’s ability to work together, trust each other, and communicate effectively is an integral part of their professional as well as your company’s growth. Bringing politics into it can disrupt those crucial relationships and have a domino effect on your business.
Decrease in productivity
Following on from the above, political conversations at work can also lead to a decrease in your team’s work output. If people are too busy debating, that in itself can be distracting and make it hard to get back into a productive mindset.
But if it results in an argument, that can further impact their individual performance. People naturally want to associate with like-minded colleagues and feel like they’re part of a team. But this can be compromised by political conflict.
As a result, this can deflect their attention from their professional roles and aims, making them feel out of place. Consequently, productivity levels can take a serious nosedive if your employees feel disconnected from the business and their teammates.
Judgement
While it’s impossible for everyone to agree on everything, exposing our political differences can lead to judgement and tainted perceptions. Our political views reflect so much more than simply which party we support; they represent our attitude toward factors like race, morality, gender, and social class.
So, when colleagues have a disagreement in this area, there’s often a much bigger picture and it can make people feel judged – something they shouldn’t experience in the workplace.
In some cases, it can lead to more serious matters like harassment and bullying. Whether it’s unconscious bias or active discrimination, it’s not uncommon for people to experience poor treatment for their personal views. Discussing politics with your colleagues can pave the way for such behaviour, which no one should experience in what is meant to be a safe space.
Potential benefits
While talking politics at work is a tricky issue, it can have some potential benefits, too. For instance:
Finding common ground
While there’s a risk of politics drawing attention to people’s differences, it can also bring them together and allow them to find common ground. Especially when starting a new job, social integration can be challenging, so light politics is often an easy way to get to know others.
Provided that discussions remain sensible and broad (without getting personal or emotional), there is excellent potential for politics to allow your employees to learn about each other, share ideas, and build meaningful connections.
Mental stimulation
Whether employees disagree or share similar opinions, political discussions at work can be constructive and even mentally stimulating. Provided that conversations remain controlled and rational, exploring different ideas can foster creative thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making.
Additionally, engaging in a healthy debate can help your team feel more productive and switched on, which is useful when energy runs low.
Manage other difficult conversations
Politics is just one of many difficult subject matters that can come up at work, but you can’t avoid them all. Learning how to steer it, however, can help build up your confidence and make it easier to take on other challenging conversations like salary/performance reviews or employee complaints.
On top of the above prospects, talking about politics can:
- Help people feel more engaged at work
- Promote effective teamwork
- Strengthen business relationships
- Improve personal and professional development
To extract some of these benefits, it’s important to approach politics broadly, intelligently, and carefully. Once emotions come into play, that’s when debates can get heated and hostile, and we can start to feel personally attacked. So, for a healthy and constructive outcome, it’s a good idea to be open-minded and empathetic.
Practical ways to manage politics at work
Discussing politics at work is a delicate issue to tackle. You can’t exactly ban certain conversations and it’s impossible to control what people talk about amongst themselves.
Well, some topics can be off-limits, but banning them can cause its own consequences. For example, it can take away people’s freedom of speech and make them feel like they can’t express themselves, which can reflect poorly on your business.
You can’t have a completely politics-free workplace, but there are some proactive steps you can take as an employer to help your team work together, instil trust and openness, and enhance your company culture. Here are some suggestions to consider:
1. Hire the right people
When recruiting staff, you should make sure that you hire the right people who will fit in with your existing team on a social and moral level.
During the interview process, try and gauge their personal and social skills. You may want to look at how they tackle difficult questions, how they solve problems, and how they perform in collaborative scenarios.
These qualities are just as important as their work experience. Assessing such areas in the recruitment phase can help you find suitable candidates who will integrate with their colleagues and share similar values, making it easier when fragile topics like politics come up.
1. Promote suitable company values
To help manage controversial topics, it’s vital that your company values reflect the attitudes and traits that you want your employees to embody in such situations. You may wish to incorporate pillars such as self-awareness, motivation, empathy, and respect.
These are some of the key components of emotional intelligence. Essentially, the aim is to encourage your staff to be considerate of different beliefs and listen to others even if they don’t agree with or understand them.
1. Training and development programmes
Another option is to encourage your staff to participate in certain training programmes. This could be conflict management, for example.
One of the main risks of discussing politics at work is friction and arguments. So, these workshops can be a great opportunity to get your team working together and learn effective ways of responding to clashes in the workplace.
Final Thoughts
In many ways, politics and other tricky conversations can’t be avoided at work. We spend most of our time with our teammates, so it’s natural to want to share our thoughts and feelings with them.
If it does come up and starts to turn sour, it’s often best to simply disengage. But a good way to approach politics at work is to recognise the risk (you may offend someone or be offended), be open-minded, and respect other people’s opinions.
Rapid Formations is a top-rated company formation agent in the UK. With a range of registration and compliance services, they have formed over 750,000 companies with thousands of excellent reviews. To find out more about them and see how they could help get your business off the ground, visit the Rapid Formations website or get in touch with their team.