16749: Politics Not Playing In Adland…?

 

Mediapsssst at Mediapost spotlighted a Harris Poll showing 54% of Gen Z and Millennial employees surveyed are uncomfortable mixing politics and work.

 

Oddly enough, The Harris Poll is a subsidiary of White holding company Stagwell, whose CEO Mark Penn is an ultra-political animal.

 

As if people need more excuses to hate being employed at a White advertising agency within the Stagwell network. Although if Carl Warner is still around, he’d feel right at home.

 

Talking Politics At Work A Non-Starter For Most Younger Voters

 

By Richard Whitman, Columnist

 

During the Democratic Convention this week many of the speakers onstage, starting with former First Lady Michelle Obama, encouraged viewers to “do something” that would help Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris win the election.

 

Others jumped on that bandwagon, offering up ideas like talking to neighbors, colleagues or relatives and reminding them to vote, donating time or money to the campaign or even going door to door to talk to people you might not know that well about the race and what’s at stake.

 

But according to a Harris Poll commissioned by job-search platform Indeed conducted July 30-August 1, over half of Gen Z and Millennial employees surveyed (54%) said that they are “uncomfortable” when politics comes up in workplace discussions.

 

And 40% of Gen Z said they would leave their company if a CEO expressed political views with which they disagree.

 

Also, 39% said they had felt pressure to conform to certain political views at work, while the same number said they had been discriminated against or harassed at work for their political views.

 

Sixteen percent said they avoided colleagues with differing political views.

 

I wonder how those numbers might change if that poll were conducted today after all the encouragement by Democrats to talk about the race assertively and often?

 

Maybe Harris and Indeed will do a follow-up survey.