Lost productivity, decreased well-being and absenteeism can cost companies money around elections, per estimates
As the 2024 presidential campaign reaches its feverish end, employers want staff coexisting peacefully and staying productive - even if the election results suck up attention and stoke emotions.
Ahead of Election Day, some bosses are thinking about how best to structure work schedules and set a respectful tone in the workplace as the rancorous race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris concludes.
As the owner of Springboard Legal, Kimberly DeCarrera serves as the general counsel and chief financial officer for small businesses and startups across the country. She's been talking with leaders from those businesses about which state laws provide paid time off to vote, as well as how to respond if worker conversations turn to politics.
"Most people understand this is work; you're here to work - we're not campaigning and getting into unprofessional altercations," DeCarrera said. This past week has been "pretty calm," she added. "It's next week that we are actually more concerned about."
The big test will come Wednesday morning, according to DeCarrera: How will employers handle staff showing up for work "when half the country is going to be disappointed and the other half is going to be happy?"
DeCarrera is suggesting that her clients minimize the number of meetings and try not to schedule deadlines around Wednesday or Thursday, if possible. She's also following her own advice: Now is the time when many of her client businesses are deciding 2025 budgets, but she's not submitting budget proposals on Wednesday or Thursday. "I want to make sure I give [the proposals] my best effort," she said.
Johnny Taylor Jr., the president and chief executive of Society for Human Resource Management, a professional organization for human-resources professionals, had a first this week. He told his full staff during a call that there would be "zero tolerance" for any type of nastiness in the office in the wake of the election results.
In past years, Taylor said, he has encouraged employees to vote and left it at that. But this year, he thought it was important to emphasize civility and put professionalism over politics. "This is the first year we need to say this and get in front of it," he said.
It's easy to say national politics should stay out of the office. But the efforts to rethink scheduling and remind employees to be on their best behavior in some corners of corporate America offer a glimpse at the wider toll of an election that has many Americans on edge.
Workers and bosses will have to manage this tension during the coming days - or even longer, if a close vote count drags on.
Seven in 10 managers are worried about rising workplace tensions after the election, according to a ResumeBuilder.com survey from late October. Many say they have already seen the effects - like verbal altercations, less teamwork and more requests to work remotely in order to avoid conflict.
The bitter political polarization has already seeped into work life, according to a SHRM survey released in late October as part of the organization's "civility index." Some 47% of workers said differing political viewpoints were playing into workplace incivility in the third quarter of the year, marking a 27-percentage-point jump from the second quarter.
SHRM's civility index doesn't define what behavior counts as incivility. But survey respondents who reported experiencing it said they needed an average of 31 minutes to regain full focus after an incident. In addition to any psychological toll that might take on a person, it also means less time and mental energy devoted to work, which comes at a cost to employers.
These estimated productivity costs are big. Lost productivity and absenteeism resulting from all forms of incivility and harassment at work cost a collective $2.1 billion each day, SHRM estimates.
In the lead-up to an election, the price of lost productivity, decreased well-being and absenteeism amounts to $900,000 a week for a 10,000-person company, according to BetterUp. The company, which offers executive coaching to Fortune 1000 companies, has been gauging how presidential politics have been weighing on workers.
Productivity and stress levels start to worsen in late summer and don't fully bounce back until three months after election week, said Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, BetterUp's chief innovation officer.
For example, around 20% of people polled in June said the election was impairing their sense of belonging at work, according to Kellerman. By August, that number had climbed to approximately 30%. "The negative impact is being felt more strongly [as the election draws closer]," she said. "It affects relationships, focus. It's affecting our sense of resilience."
While nine in 10 employees in the survey said they didn't want their organization taking a stance in the election, many wanted managers who would act as neutral problem solvers for workplace dustups about the election, Kellerman said. "This is how we build a culture that can tolerate these moments of division," she noted.
Ahead of the election, BetterUp's client companies have been working with managers and staff to soften the productivity dip and speed its recovery, Kellerman said.
The 2020 presidential election unfolded during the pandemic, when remote work was more prevalent. In the slow march back to the office since then, data have shown that white-collar office occupancy tends to increase on Tuesday - when Election Day falls - and in the middle of the week.
Some of DeCarrera's client businesses are located near Georgia's statehouse in Atlanta. If any vote-count challenges in the swing state attract media coverage and onlookers, they could make parking difficult and lunch spots harder to find, she said. Worse, she added, what if any sort of unrest breaks out?
Some of her client businesses have already decided to work from home starting Wednesday, she said. Two in 10 managers say they'll probably arrange for remote work next week, according to the ResumeBuilder survey. Another 17% say they'll definitely work from home that week.
For businesses that cannot have employees work from home, DeCarrera and the companies' management have talked through scenarios to keep staff productive and safe.
The exercise is not meant to be alarmist, DeCarrera noted - it's just an attempt to be fully prepared for anything and everything. "It's more a general, 'We want to take care of us and our team members' [approach]," she said.
Over in Powhatan, Va., Shirley Modlin, the co-owner and CEO of 3D Design & Manufacturing, has long offered her roughly 15 employees two hours of paid time off to vote. But talking about politics on the job is a different story, she said.
Over two decades, Modlin and her husband, the company's co-owner, have strived for a culture of teamwork, professionalism and precision. If politics and religion bubble into conversations at the shop, Modlin said, she tries to wind them down quickly or lower the temperature, to avoid wedge issues that could divide coworkers who need to cooperate. In the coming days, "I think we will have a little bit of a heightened ear and eye," she noted.
But there are still projects to complete, no matter what. "We're not changing anything we are doing," she said. "Productivity has to stay at the level it's at. We have to stay focused."
-Andrew Keshner
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