Ask HR

Background: In the last few years since the murder of George Floyd, companies have begun to make statements internally or externally through channels to express their alignment with or against actions, policies, philosophies or news events in the world.

There has been a predicable spectrum as these statements have become common: some companies didn't believe it their place to comment as a company. some companies only made a statement about George Floyd's murder or trial result and it has been radio silence since. Others went on to tackle police accountability or funding. Others saw similar treatment of other minorities by police as equally appalling. Still others looked at other instances of systemic suffering by still more groups and made statements about the value and their commitment of righting these wrongs. The issues and statements and alignments and tweets have expanded outward to almost any human issue from there.

The prompt: If your organization makes or has started making such internal or external statements about news, events, political issues and other phenomena in the last few years, what are your thoughts? Is there value to a tweet? Because it's impractical, where does your org or where do you think an organization should draw the line in terms of what is worthy of a statement and what is not? By commenting on some issues is there not a concern it can be interpreted others are not as important? E.g. a tsunami in one country vs. a school shooting. Do you or your org think it's an organization's role or mission to make statements about phenomena unrelated to your core mission?