Millions of people in the U.S. and beyond returned to work on Monday feeling anxious about the world. A gunman’s attempt on the life of presidential candidate Donald Trump Saturday afternoon has left many feeling destabilized about the state of U.S. politics, regardless of their political leanings.
In the immediate aftermath of the incident, members of both political parties have called for calm and unity. Still, employers have reason to worry about the impact this weekend’s political violence might have on the workplace. The 2024 election was already set to be contentious. Now, employees will be grappling with red-hot emotions, and heightened fears over political differences. And if social media is any indication, people from both sides of the political divide are ready to police each other’s reactions.
Some business leaders may feel obliged to share words of reassurance or hope with their employees. But experts who spoke with Fortune say that bosses should take a deep breath and pause before chiming in on the latest developments. Here’s what they advise to prevent workplace friction.
First decide if you actually want to say something
Not all employers will issue a statement, or say something about the events of the past weekend.
But those that do will also send a secondary message to employees that they intend to weigh on future politically charged events, says Sam Schwartz-Fenwick, an employment lawyer at Seyfarth Shaw, who is also part of the company’s internal Cultural Flashpoints team, a group that advises clients dealing with issues that can divide employees. That cycle of commentary on world news can be exhausting to many people, so managers should think carefully if they want to wade into choppy waters at all—they will likely have to weigh in on future events as well.
“There’s so much fatigue right now about non-work issues kind of infecting and inflaming the workplace that I think a lot of employers are going to decide it’s better to say nothing and just try to keep that as the standard throughout what’s going to be an unprecedentedly heated political fight,” says Schwartz-Fenwick.
But if it’s clear that your workplace is already in trouble, issuing a statement or talking about the weekend’s incident may be an opportunity for a reset.
“Some employers could use it as a tool to say, ‘We need to dial back how hot our rhetoric is in this company and in the workforce,” Schwartz-Fenwick adds. “We need to all view each other as well-meaning people.’”
Don’t talk, just listen
Whether or not a company makes a statement, listening is the most important part of its response, according to William Ury, author of the classic book about negotiations, Getting To Yes.
“Something tragic happens, something violent happens, and people have emotions, naturally,” says Ury. “The most important thing you can do is listen and show respect to any sentiments that are coming up.”
He recommends creating a forum for employees to talk, and suggests that CEOs and managers sit down with them to hear what they have to say, reflecting back what they’re hearing.
“The impulse is to think ‘I’m the leader, I have to say something,’ but really what a leader does is they listen first,” he says.
Even in the midst of a conflict, listening often dissipates emotion, and makes employees feel respected. “They want to feel heard, they want to feel seen,” he says. “And they don’t want to feel they might be attacked.”
Should a leader step into the conversation after hearing from workers, they ought to take what Ury calls “the third side.” This means sticking up for the “side of the whole community, the side of America, the side of everyone in the workplace community,” he says. In this case, taking the third side would mean taking a stand against violence, as several business leaders have already done.
“Leaders can stand up for the democratic system, which actually permits businesses to succeed. It’s our structure. It’s the structure of freedoms that allows us to have a free market,” he says.
Consider enforceable policies — and casual ones too
Over the past few years, more and more companies have been creating political expression policies, which are designed to protect the rights of employees while managing potential tripwires, according to Schwarz-Fenwick.
Many are aimed at employees’ behavior or apparel—even emojis and email signatures. Employers might say, “We don’t want people to wear clothes with political messaging on them. We don’t want you to hang political flags from your cubicles. We don’t want you to cover your water bottle in political stickers,” says Schwartz-Fenwick.
Some employers go further: Meta, for example, now has “community engagement expectations” that bans employees from discussing “very disruptive topics.” Crypto company Coinbase has a similar model.
But outside of official company policies, many bosses are informally asking employees to limit their political conversations to those that are “consensual and appropriate,” says Schwarz-Fenwick. In other words, it shouldn’t be one employee’s unilateral decision to launch a debate about Biden or Trump with peers who do not necessarily want to be engaged that way.
Or let the group create the rules
There is also a less lawyerly, more communal approach to establishing best practices around how to talk about politics at work.
Company leaders can invite employees to decide whether they want to establish rules around political discourse at work, what those rules should entail, and invite input from employees to inform public-facing statements around political events.
“Ask: ‘How should we do this?’” Ury says, adding it’s “a chance for the community to come together and develop a norm for something that everyone wants.”
