The Legal Tightrope Between Employee Politics and Employer Rights

As politics continue to dominate the headlines, HR professionals find themselves on the front lines of free speech at work. Can employees be fired for expressing political opinions — or does the First Amendment protect them? Attorney Tom Spiggle joins host Nicole Belyna, SHRM-SCP, to unpack the legal limits, HR policy challenges, and real-world scenarios workplaces must navigate when politics and employment collide. For SHRM members tuning into this episode, we have an exclusive bonus: a SHRM HR Knowledge Advisor answering real member questions about political expression in the workplace, direct from the SHRM HR Knowledge Center! View the Honest HR Q&A: This podcast is approved for .5 PDCs toward SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP recertification. Listen to the complete episode to get your activity ID at the end. ID expires November 1, 2026.

You can listen to The Legal Tightrope Between Employee Politics and Employer Rights online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Legal Tightrope Between Employee Politics and Employer Rights is an episode from Honest HR by SHRM.

This episode is 33:21 long.

This episode was published on Nov 5, 2025.

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