Recently Google issued new workplace guidelines that include, "While sharing information and ideas with colleagues helps build community, disrupting the workday to have a raging debate over politics or the latest news story does not. Our primary responsibility is to do the work we've each been hired to do, not to spend working time on debates about non-work topics."
Google has been commended for their more relaxed corporate culture of encouraging employees to speak up and even challenge superiors, in addition to offering employees massages, on-site physicians, free organic meals, and death benefits to survivors. A flip side to having an open corporate culture is that there are fewer reins on statements from employees that can be viewed as sexist or racist.
With an increase in hiring, the potential for interoffice conflict and differing opinions grows. A Google employee sent out a 10-page memo to others within the company that stated men were more fit for engineering and leadership roles due to "personality differences," and that Google's policy of working to achieve gender equality in the workplace was "unfair...and bad for business." The employee was fired.
One employee, Kevin Cerenkee, claimed he was fired by Google for his conservative views. A coworker who was also a member of the Google Republicans mail messaging forum with Cerenkee, Mike Wacker, expressed his concerns of the content of Cerenkee's posts. One of Cerenkee's posts encouraged donations to an alt-right group that was forming a bounty to find someone who had punched a white supremacist leader. Wacker wrote of Cerenkee's posts, "For over a year, I have seen the alt-right try and work their influence at Google, infiltrating mailing lists, infiltrating Google's culture, and even trying to infiltrate Google's product decisions. Cernekee called Wacker's statements "false and baseless smears from a jealous and vindictive ex-colleague."
This brings us to your office. What policies do you have in place for when employees make statements that are against company standards or ethics? What is your stance on an employee's right to free speech versus consequences of that free speech when it is offensive, demeaning, or opens your company up to possible harassment claims?
Do you have a code of conduct addressing appropriate versus inappropriate discussions in the workplace? Are all your board members on the same page when it comes to delineating between an employee venting about politics and being disruptive? Is that line drawn when another employee files a complaint, or is there a proactive stance about appropriate workplace topics?
What's your policy when a board member makes questionable comments? Address it immediately, or see how it plays out? Patrick Byrne, the chief executive and chairman of Overstock.com, resigned after statements on his personal website and an interview on CNN where he claimed the FBI encouraged him to pursue a relationship with a woman who has been accused of being a Russian spy, amongst other claims. Overstock.com's stock dropped 36% after Byrne's comments and then increased somewhat after he resigned. The FBI denied Byrne's claims.
The standard rule is to set company guidelines for conduct or ethics before a problem or crisis arises. With written guidelines, your board and your employees should be aware of what is expected of them from the day they are hired. Because organizations and people are dynamic, guidelines change over time. It is much easier to adapt an already established set of guidelines rather than trying to establish guidelines after the fact. Consult with an attorney and an organizational psychologist when establishing a code of conduct or ethics.
Items to address in a company code of conduct or ethics include compliance with state and federal law, respect for others, reporting conflicts of interest, a policy for reporting harassment, protection of company property, office safety, environmental policies, requirements of suppliers, the "chain of command," expectations of professionalism (and what that entails), details on policies regarding employee attendance, and procedures and consequences for violations. These are just a few of the items to be included in a code of conduct. Sometimes the board of directors has open communication with employees regarding what the code of conduct should include; other boards create the code of conduct and ethics from other companies' examples. It depends on the structure of your company and whether you have a defined hierarchy or a more egalitarian workplace. Again, consult with an attorney and an organizational psychologist about your code of conduct or ethics, and consult with other business leaders as well. A well-thought-out code of conduct or ethics can help decrease strife in the workplace.
