Perils of Sending Political Emails at Work

by David Micah Kaufman

“Oh my!” my lunch colleague exclaimed after glancing at her Blackberry (R) during a break in the conversation. “I am being invited to Candidate X’s fundraiser by my boss. Why does she think I support him/her?”

‘Tis the season — election season — when perfectly normal people who usually would never think about discussing politics feel compelled to wear their affiliations on their sleeves and in their e-mails.

Find practical tips and ideas for HR, including technology in the workplace, in each month’s issue of HR Insight

Sex, Religion, and Politics
I was always taught that sex, religion, and politics are three things that you should steer clear of discussing at work. We’ve run plenty of articles about the dangers of “sex talk” at work — and its ramifications. We’ve addressed the issue of religious conversations, as well. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that people don’t refrain from communicating about politics in the workplace.

Political Problems
What’s so bad about discussing politics at work? Well, unfortunately you may make people who you work with, you work for, or report to you feel uncomfortable. A Harris Interactive poll indicated that 23 percent of men and 30 percent of women feel very uncomfortable discussing their political views in the workplace. They are fearful that they don’t fit into their company’s political culture.

Aside from some public-sector employers, there’s no prohibition against considering an employee’s political viewpoints in making hiring decisions, so there is no risk in creating a dominant political culture in a workplace — right? Not exactly. Political discussions and philosophies can easily be confused with religious, racial, sexual orientation, and even disability issues. Employers are prohibited from using those criteria in hiring in most jurisdictions.

Electronic Complications
The easy availability of the Internet and e-mail to communicate political messages to coworkers makes the topic more complex. The Internet has revolutionized politics and the way campaigns are executed. When Hillary Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary, she exhorted the nationwide audience to go to www.hillaryclinton.com to make a contribution to her campaign. Meet-ups, blogs, YouTube, and e-alerts are all making this modern campaign different from all previous ones. Employees can now be a political operative by just sitting at their desks, even if that desk is in your office.

The proliferation of political e-mail (or spam) makes it quite simple to forward an e-mail one receives from any one of the hosts of campaign or interest group sources. Just forwarding an e-mail can create problems. Last year, Christine Castillo Comer, director of science for the Texas Education Agency, lost her job after she forwarded an e-mail message about evolution and creationism. Her dismissal letter described the topics as “a subject on which the agency must remain neutral.”

Avoid E-mail
Employees using their work e-mail account to solicit support for their candidate, invite colleagues to campaign, and send commentary favoring their choice may be creating a violation of your nonsolicitation policies. Those policies, which restrict nonwork-related solicitation, are being increasingly used to prohibit union organizing using company e-mail after a ruling last year from the National Labor Relations Board. The ruling not only held that nonsolicitation policies were lawful, but the Board also determined that the promulgation and enforcement of the policies are important requisites to banning union-related solicitations.

Employers that don’t have a nonsolicitation provision as part of their electronic communications policy should consider incorporating one in their manual. Also, you should be proactive in dealing with political discussions and communications, especially electronic ones.

Basic Training for Supervisors – easy-to-read training guides, including electronic issues in the workplace

Setting Boundaries
Since election fever is likely to gain intensity as we get closer to November, you should consider setting some boundaries for your employees and their use of electronic communications in political messaging. Some boundaries to consider include:

• Employees shouldn’t use their company e-mail accounts to solicit political contributions, attendance at political events, or to promote a particular candidate for elective office.
• Employees’ e-mail signatures shouldn’t include any political messages or links to political websites.
• If an employee is creating an enterprise (which uses unstructured information and allows users to update content and participate in real time) or internal blog, internal or external website, or post messages on behalf of the company, he should refrain from including overtly political language in the postings.

No matter who is elected President, he/she will likely make it interesting in the world of HR and HR technology in particular.

David Micah Kaufman is the founder of BIGGER PIES! — a boutique professional services consulting firm in San Francisco — and a regular contributor to HR Insight and HRIT. You can reach him at (415) 272-8115.