David Swanson/Reuters
- Heightened political tensions in the workplace mean many HR leaders are walking a tightrope.
- The killing of activist Charlie Kirk is leading some to reexamine workplace policies.
- “There is more pressure on the HR person to determine what is acceptable,” one HR veteran said.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for HR leaders.
Vice President JD Vance on Monday urged Americans to report people who praise the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk to their employers.
“When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out,” Vance said. “And hell, call their employer.”
If the phone rings, it’s often HR that’s expected to pick up.
Several companies have fired or disciplined workers for comments they made about Kirk on social media, including Microsoft, Delta Air Lines, and Nasdaq. The fallout has also ensnared media personalities Jimmy Kimmel and Matthew Dowd.
Vance’s remarks and similar calls for action have added yet another task to the list for HR teams already dealing with recurring layoffs, return-to-office mandates, the rise of AI, and immigration raids at workplaces.
The fresh injection of political tensions into break rooms and cubicle clusters means many HR leaders are under greater pressure to keep the peace, Jim Link, head of HR for the Society for Human Resource Management, told Business Insider.
“We find ourselves right now in very trying times because of what’s happening in the world around us,” he said. HR is often deemed to be the “keeper of the culture,” Link said, and that has taken on extra weight in recent days.
Social media can make the job harder
One of the biggest challenges for HR is keeping tabs on what employees say on social media and internal message boards like Slack, especially during times of national political unrest. Unlike the proverbial water cooler banter of the analog era, when an off-color remark might not go beyond a couple of coworkers, an employee’s online rhetoric can reach a massive audience, Melissa Swift, the founder and CEO of HR consultancy Anthrome Insight, told Business Insider.
“You get on social media and 2 million people hear you,” she said. Those posts, then, can be read as a reflection of an organization itself, not just the individual. That’s a change from years ago, Swift said.
“Companies’ views are perceived to be the sum of their employees’ views,” she said.
Link said the Society for Human Resource Management is fielding more inquiries about corporate social media policies. For many employers, he said, attempting to ban political discussions in the workplace is “probably nonsensical, because it’s going to happen.”
Even so, C-suite leaders might prefer that political chatter not make it past the lobby. Some corporate chiefs have grown weary of employee activism, including protests involving thorny geopolitical issues. Big-name CEOs, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, have said they want a more meat-and-potatoes approach of just focusing on the work.
That can leave HR teams playing whac-a-mole with employees who express themselves on the job anyway.
In the wake of the Kirk shooting, companies are likely tightening their policies around hiring and employee behavior because the risk of political backlash is too great, said Bryan Creely, who worked in HR for two decades and now runs a career-coaching business called A Life After Layoff.
“Cancel culture, or whatever you want to call it, is impacting the bottom lines of businesses,” he told Business Insider. “Employers just do not want to be associated with this stuff.”
This is putting HR professionals in a difficult position. “There is more pressure on the HR person to determine what is acceptable versus what isn’t,” said Creely, referring to employee behavior.
“The political discourse is really changing. One day something is fine, the next day it’s not,” he said.
Lauren Winans, CEO of the HR consulting firm Next Level Benefits, told Business Insider that some HR leaders are having to reexamine workplace rules around politics and social media and how far to go with enforcement.
“Even the most seasoned professionals are definitely feeling overwhelmed and definitely needing to revisit a lot of the policies,” she said.
‘The pendulum has swung a bit’
Tim Toterhi, fractional CHRO at Plotline Leadership, told Business Insider that an added challenge for some HR workers can be setting aside their own beliefs. After all, human-resources workers are human.
He said that a broad corporate retreat on issues like diversity, equity, and inclusion might rankle HR staffers who believe that they have been doing noble work to promote fairness, Toterhi said.
“The pendulum has swung a bit, and it’s made it more uncomfortable for some HR folks,” he said.
Everything everywhere all at once
Ryan Starks, head of growth at Rising Team, a team-performance platform, told Business Insider in an email that HR workers “can’t be in every discussion to guide or mediate because there simply isn’t enough time and the pace of work is too fast.”
He said that most HR leaders would say they’re being asked to do more with less.
“They’re not just human resource leaders anymore—they’re also being called on as AI leaders, with pressure from boards and the C-suite to navigate new technology and expectations in an already highly politicized environment,” Starks said.
Beyond that, he said, there’s often a push to show a return on investment for “everything they do.”
That pressure comes as there’s been a blurring of lines between what’s personal and what’s professional, in part because workers can express themselves using social media, said Swift, from Anthrome Insight. Because some workers aren’t as attuned to what’s OK to share at work and what’s not, it “just makes things super messy,” she said. When it comes to politics, the line isn’t always clear.
“It’s incredibly hard to navigate,” Swift said.