3 in 4 business leaders fear for employee safety in face of rising political tension

A notable majority of business leaders Down Under are reporting worsening workplace security risks – something that may be exacerbated following the outcome of next week’s presidential election in the US.

Localised political tensions, a charity has found, represent a newly-elevated risk to employees in workplaces across the board, as debates and campaigns worldwide become increasingly polarised. The warning from health and security risk management charity International SOS Foundation comes on the eve of the US presidential election, being held next week on 5 November.

The race for the White House between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump has been marked by unprecedented polarisation and misinformation, with Trump having notably declined to accept the outcome of the election should he lose, as he did in 2020.

Of course, four years ago, his refusal to acknowledge the victory of President Joe Biden, and his subsequent stoking of claims of election fraud – claims which were repeatedly dismissed by courts across the US – culminated in the attack on the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters, which threatened to derail the certification of Biden’s victory.

In its recent annual Risk Outlook report, which surveyed organisational leaders globally, including Down Under, the International SOS Foundation found, among other things, that 74 per cent of business leaders around the world fear that escalating political tensions will jeopardise employee safety moving forward.

In Australia and New Zealand, three in five (59 per cent) business leaders reported that they perceived a worsening of health, wellbeing and security risks in the current climate, with the same percentage of respondents noting that they felt their organisations were poorly prepared for polarisation, political instability, misinformation, geopolitical tensions and extreme weather events.

The findings come from the recent annual Risk Outlook by the International SOS Foundation, which surveyed organisational leaders globally, including Down Under. The International SOS Foundation Duty of Care Summit, being held this week and hosted by the foundation, will unpack the report’s findings.

Reflecting on the findings, International SOS chief executive and Foundation chair Arnaud Vaissié said: “The risks to employees – and the duties of care incumbent on organisational leadership – have never been heavier.”

“This might sound alarmist, but it is my measured view based on forty years of leading my organisation,” he said.

Workplaces, Vaissié continued, are “no longer immune from the risks of polarised politics”.

“We have escalating political uncertainty and knife-edge elections, at the same time as people increasingly form their views from a narrow set of sources and social media provides a ‘proof point’ for any attitude they wish to take,” he said.

“The political schisms that result lead to increasingly complex risks for businesses and organisations operating in Australia and around the world.”