Office Politics

Love them or loathe them, many of your employees will be voting for them this November, and maybe making them the subject of uncomfortable vending machine conversations. But according to a new survey from American Management Association (AMA) on politics and the workplace, employees have mixed feelings about sharing political views with colleagues and bosses.

More than one-third (35 percent) of the 701 senior executives, managers, and employees surveyed say they are uncomfortable discussing their political views with colleagues; 39 percent say they are comfortable; and 25 percent say they are neutral about sharing their political opinions. Forty percent, meanwhile, are comfortable talking politics with supervisors; 38 percent are uncomfortable; and 22 percent are neutral.

Political chatter at work is expected during a presidential election year, but the AMA survey shows most employees are not campaigning in the office for their favorites. Ninety-two percent of respondents say no one from their company—either management or labor—recommended voting for a particular candidate because it would benefit the organization. This is a slight decrease from AMA's 2004 survey on the same subject, in which 13 percent of respondents confirmed someone from their company recommended a particular candidate. In the current study, only 7 percent actually confirmed someone recommended voting for a particular candidate.