According to the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, 43% of employers provide paid leave for their workers to vote. Given that 35% of non-voters said that the reason they didn’t vote was that there was a scheduling conflict with work or school, you’d think more companies would be inclined to make voting more accessible. There are plenty of benefits for businesses that do so, as well.
Jennifer Benz, a senior vice president and the communication lead at Segal Benz — which is a national leader in HR communication — discusses these benefits, alternatives people can use to take time to vote if their company doesn’t provide paid leave, and the increasingly tricky line companies walk of what to say to their people during a heated election cycle.
Elections naturally bring with them a unique sort of stress. According to NPR, 7 out of 10 Americans say that the future of the country is a significant sort of stress. “The benefits of offering leave to vote are that more people have the opportunity to vote, but it removes a lot of stress for that situation because it’s not always the easiest for people to take the time to vote, and it’s not always a short and simple process,” says Benz.
For those would-be voters whose employers don’t offer paid leave to vote, Benz says there are many ways that employees can get creative to find the time. Sure, there’s always formal paid time off and one can submit a request for PTO, but it feels unfair that employees must sacrifice one day in what, in many cases, is already a meager PTO offer. The average American worker gets only 11 days of paid vacation per year, and nearly a third of employees don’t get any PTO at all, according to a Forbes Advisor story.
“For those with a flexible work schedule, perhaps you just take off half the day, but you don’t have to officially take time off because you’re just going to make that up somewhere else,” says Benz. “And then many companies offer time off for volunteering, so employees can volunteer to be a poll worker or volunteer to help people on election day.”
With the logistics of voting becoming easier for people, companies next need to tackle what — if anything — they’re going to say to their people about the election itself. “It is beneficial for most employers to stay party-neutral,” says Benz. “You’re going to have employees that have all different points of view, and you don’t want to be creating division within your employee population. Being neutral is the way to go for most companies.”
That said, Benz acknowledges some exceptions to the rule. “Depending on the type of organization you are, there might be a specific issue that makes sense for you to have a clear point of view and take a stand on. For example, when healthcare organizations advocate for better health access. There’s a lot of specific issues where your employees would find it completely bizarre for you not to have a clear point of view.” She also reiterates that while employers may not want to endorse a specific candidate or party, they absolutely should denounce the hateful and racist rhetoric that is too often becoming part of the political conversation.
And for the day after the election, when emotions are running high? Benz says it comes down to one of the most important leadership skills: listening. “Senior leaders have to get better at navigating tough topics and understanding everything that’s happening outside the office and all of the stress that it causes. Whether it’s politics, war, or social justice issues, all of that is impacting people’s day-to-day experiences and influencing how they feel. You have to get good at understanding how they feel and have empathy for that and creating some sort of space for it.”