Ask the Experts: Political Talk, Outages & Posters

On Nov 11, 2024

In the latest installment of New Jersey Business Magazine’s Ask the Experts column, HR professionals working with the New Jersey Business & Industry Association respond to executives’ inquiries on three interesting workplace issues:

We usually don’t mind employees chit-chatting while they work, but some recent politics-related conversations have gotten rather loud and heated. Can we tell employees not to discuss politics at work?

You can limit political speech and associated conduct that are not work-related – provided you don’t infringe on protected Section 7 rights or applicable state laws. Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act gives non-supervisory employees the right to talk about the terms and conditions of their employment and the right to unionize. While this law protects some political activities, it doesn’t give employees the right to discuss politics during work hours unless they have an impact on the terms and conditions of their employment. 

That said, we recommend focusing on the effects these discussions might be having on job performance rather than on the specific topic of conversation. If an employee spends too much time engaged in chit-chat, regardless of the topic, they’re probably not performing their best. If nothing else, they’re distracting others. 

You’re also certainly welcome to tell employees that all conversations should be held with indoor voices and that non-work-related topics should be reserved for break areas where they won’t be distracting those who need to focus.

We have remote and on-site employees. Do we have to post hard copies of required labor posters in the workplace, or can we provide only electronic ones on our internal web page for all employees to see?

As you have remote and on-site employees, we recommend doing both. In December 2020, the Department of Labor issued Field Assistance Bulletin 2020-07, which permits businesses to share the poster information electronically as a supplement to the requirement to post hard copies. Electronic posting is only allowed as a substitute for physical posters if the following conditions are met:

• All the employer’s employees exclusively work remotely.
• All employees customarily receive information from the employer via electronic means.
• All employees always have readily available access to the electronic posting.

Note that electronic posting of required labor posters must be as effective as on-site posting. They should be readily accessible without employees needing to ask for permission to view them or where to find them. We recommend sharing in a location where remote employees typically receive other legal notices and important information from your organization.

Do we need to pay our remote employees for a full day if they lose internet access for a few hours?

It depends on their status under the Fair Labor Standard Act (FLSA). Your exempt employees need to be paid their full salary for the day if they did any work before or after the outage (or both).

Your nonexempt employees only need to be paid for time worked. So, if your employees didn’t do any other work while their internet was down, you don’t have to pay them for those hours. Note that any time they spent troubleshooting the connection would likely qualify as work and should be paid. 

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