Worries about the election could be cutting into some workers’ productivity

• Anxiety over the US election could be hurting some workers’ productivity.
• When we see incivility, even secondhand, it can hijack our attention and focus, an expert told BI.
• One boss is considering letting his employees work remotely in the weeks after the election.

AJ Gareffa thought about taking off the day after Tuesday’s election but instead plans to be off work for the entire week.

Gareffa, 27, is a therapist in Livonia, Michigan, near Detroit. They said they’ve already found in recent days that stress over the election is causing their mind to sometimes wander for a few seconds when they’re with a client. Gareffa said that’s a sign that time off is needed.

“You can’t be a life raft to anyone if you are drowning,” they told Business Insider.

Gareffa isn’t alone in finding it harder to concentrate at work because of anxiety over the election.

In a survey of 1,000 US managers conducted online in October by ResumeBuilder.com, 38% of respondents said the election had already hurt morale and productivity. Seven in 10 managers are worried tensions will worsen after the election.

Felix Kim is the founder and CEO of Redrob, a startup that develops skills assessments designed to remove bias from hiring. He is concerned, in part, that the election might hurt team cohesion and said he’s already seeing signs that the inescapable campaign news is wearing on workers.

“People, of course, are distracted,” Kim said. He said he’s planning for disruptions to his company’s routines because, no matter who wins, “it’s going to be a wild ride.”

Kim is considering telling the small company’s workers who normally commute to its office in New York City several days a week to work remotely following the election, perhaps for as long as two weeks.

The cost of tension

The American Psychological Association found in an August survey that nearly seven in 10 US adults reported that the election was a “significant” source of stress. That’s similar to 2020 and above the 52% of adults who reported the same level of anxiety in 2016. The online survey, conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of the APA, involved about 3,300 adults in the US.

“The emotional drain of what we’re all experiencing is going to lower productivity,” Gabriella Kellerman, chief innovation officer at the virtual coaching platform BetterUp, told BI. How much we get done on the job can drop because of our own anxiety, and when working with others becomes fraught.

“As we get closer to the election, people are more likely to avoid coworkers based on feared political tension,” Kellerman said.

That friction, or fear of it, can hurt team output.

Dorie Clark, a communication coach who teaches at Columbia Business School and is the author of “The Long Game,” told BI that some workers have been preoccupied for months about the election. That’s likely to increase on Election Day, and perhaps in its aftermath, she said.

She said some workers will be busy hitting refresh on news and social sites, looking for insight into how the election might swing.

“What they’re wanting is the one thing they can’t have, which is control,” Clark said.

She said that for some workers, not knowing what their future — and that of the country —might look like because of the vote can produce major stress.

“This is not dissimilar to a patient who has acute symptoms but no diagnosis,” Clark said.

Bad behavior can be contagious

Christine Porath, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and author of “Mastering Community,” told BI that the toxicity of a divisive election could seep into our workdays as people are exposed to rudeness and bad behavior — even if they’re only learning about it secondhand.

“It’s very distracting and hijacks our attention and focus. It leads us to perform worse, be far less creative, less helpful to others, and unfortunately, it is contagious,” she said.

Porath said that when incivility infiltrates the workplace, it primes employees to act or think dysfunctionally. Those employees, in turn, can spread that negativity to their coworkers.

The Society for Human Resource Management reports that politics is a “top driver” of incivility on the job. Discourtesy, the organization said, costs US organizations a collective $2.17 billion every day due to absenteeism and reduced productivity.

Yet it’s not all bad news. In research Porath conducted several years ago involving six organizations in different industries, she found that workers who felt that they were thriving in their jobs were better able to repel the type of negativity — like that emanating from a contentious election — that could lead them to become distracted.

What managers can do

Clark, the communication coach, said managers shouldn’t make assumptions about their teams’ political leanings but should instead be sensitive to employees’ emotions.

Yet that doesn’t mean being overly indulgent or letting workers focus too long on issues that aren’t germane to the business.

“You might feel sad about who wins or loses a presidential election, but this is very different than, say, the death of a relative,” Clark said.

Despite the widespread election worries, not every indicator signals that the vexing political climate is throwing off most workers. In an online survey of about 900 US workers conducted from late August to mid-September, the research firm Gartner found that while 48% of employees said they were anxious about who would win the election, two-thirds of respondents said those concerns hadn’t dented their productivity at work.

Gareffa, the therapist in Michigan, doesn’t want to risk being overly distracted when they’re with clients. Gareffa plans to use the week off from work to spend time with family and perhaps focus on a hobby like drawing or sculpting. They said their clients have been understanding about the planned time away.

“It’s been a good kind of example of how to take care of yourself without just running away from responsibilities or just pumping the brakes on life,” Gareffa said.