Publish Your Political Activity Policy Now! (Here Are Two Samples)

Here’s sample Political Activity Policy number one:

Employees are not to participate in election activities while working and are not to use company facilities to engage in election activities.

When not on company premises, representing the company or using company resources, an employee’s personal conduct is his or her own to regulate.

Employees are encouraged to participate in community volunteer civic activities.

Employees may use paid time off to engage in political or civic activities.

Employees may be granted unpaid personal leave to engage in political or civic activities.

If an employee engages in behavior in violation of this policy or others, the company may review that employee’s behavior and may take action.

And here’s the second sample political activity policy, a somewhat stricter approach:

Employees pursuing their own interests shall not use the company name, trademarks, trade dress, logos, reputation, phone number, stationery or other resources except to the extent required or permitted by their job responsibilities.

Specifically, employees may not use company property (including but not limited to telephones, cell phones, computers, laptops, Internet access, websites, e-mail, copiers, printers, scanners, and facsimiles) to endorse, support, or campaign to register voters, “get out the vote,” or for a candidate or a cause.

Employees’ political activities must not involve the company and must not interfere with the normal performance of their duties or the duties of other employees.

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The company may require employees to remove any political material from their work space, clothing, or property on the company’s premises that disrupts the workplace. Please refer to the company’s respect for dignity and contraband policies for details.

In the absence of the express written permission of the president of the company, no employee may speak on behalf of the company or imply that he or she speaks for the majority of company employees.

Employees with questions regarding the application of this policy to their personal political activities are to contact the Human Resources department for guidance.

If an employee engages in behavior that reflects, or has the potential to reflect, unfavorably on the company or shows a lack of dependability or good judgment, the company may take any corrective action that it deems appropriate.

This policy will be coordinated with the company’s time off to vote policy.

Employees who violate this policy are subject to discipline up to and including discharge.

As you set up your policy on political discussion, remember that state laws may come into play, especially in the areas of privacy and off-duty conduct.

Setting up your organization’s political discussion policy? Worrying about internal equity? New ranges? Pay-for-performance? Wage and hour compliance?—challenges abound for every compensation manager. Every day brings new problem from within the organization and on top of that pile on whatever the agencies and courts throw in your way.

You need a go-to resource, and our editors recommend the “everything-HR-in-one website,” HR.BLR.com. As an example of what you will find, here are some policy recommendations concerning red-circle rates, excerpted from the website:

Red-circle rates are another story. Obviously, cutting the pay of an employee will not do much to gain acceptance for the new wage program, so alternatives have to be considered.

• One alternative is to “grandfather” the employee; this means allowing the employee to stay above the maximum until the person is promoted, terminated, or retired.
• Another approach is to freeze the employee at that red-circle rate until adjustments to the rate range finally capture the employee’s rate back into the structure.
• Still another approach is to increase the employee’s wage by only half of the adjustments made to the range, again, until the rate is captured.

A similar problem occurs with employees who are under- or overpaid in relation to actual performance. As defined, the minimum, midpoint, and maximum rates are each definitions of pay for specific levels of performance. So an employee performing 80 percent of the job duties at 80 percent efficiency under normal supervision and who is paid above the midpoint may have a pay rate similar to a red-circle rate except that it is within the rate range.

 In this case, counseling and performance evaluation feedback are needed to bring performance in line with pay.

We should point out that this is just one of hundreds of analyses, checklists, training materials, job descriptions, and sample policies on the site.

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