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A. Some employees may have strong opinions on politics and the news of a General Election on 4 July 2024 is likely to bring talk of politics and party promises to the fore. Over the next five weeks, the various political parties in the UK will be announcing their plans should they form the next government which could lead to debate and disagreements in the workplace that are detrimental to productivity and employee relations. As such, it is understandable that your client wants to put in place some form of control over this with their staff.
Your client has the right to set reasonable rules for behaviour in their workplace and rules on political talk and symbols can be included in this. Examples of this could be canvassing in the workplace for a political party or displaying support for a particular party through a flag, desk sign or accessory.
When putting in place rules around political activity, it’s important to treat everyone equally. This means that whatever political stance your client might personally have, banning talk or symbols in relation to a particular political party would not be reasonable; they should do the same for all parties. Having a ‘political activity in the workplace’ policy is recommended for this purpose, as your client can use it to set such rules out. They can also include in it the repercussions for breaching the policy.
Where your client has outlined the potential repercussions for breaching their rules on political activity in the workplace, they should be sure to implement these, as failure to do so could indicate to their workforce that these are not rules that matter, and their efforts in setting out these rules would be wasted.
Any enforcement of the policy should be commensurate to the breach. In the first instance, it is likely that it would be appropriate to have a word with any employee who breached the rule and ask them to stick to the terms of the policy, noting that failure to do so in the future could warrant formal, more serious action.
