Israel-Hamas conflict | As tense discourse about the Middle East rises in the workplace, how should employers respond?

It can be difficult for any employer to know how to respond to a global crisis or conflict in another region. Businesses often fear that siding with one party could automatically rebrand them or isolate customers or clients that don’t align with that sentiment.

But where are the boundaries when it comes to employees voicing their opinion? The recent outbreak of war in Israel has shed light on a myriad of questions around how employers should respond, if at all, to staff expressing their own perspective, sometimes at work itself, but usually on social media. These scenarios prompt questions around where lines are drawn between employees being ambassadors for your company and them having their own personal identity.

In one case, a Citibank employee, Nozima Husainova, was fired after writing a post on Instagram that read “no wonder Hitler wanted to get rid of them”, endorsing the Holocaust and the mass murder of Jewish people. The post was written in response to a bomb at the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, which killed hundreds of Palestinians.

Read more from us

Co-worker conflict | Feuding colleagues cause nearly HALF of all workplace grievances

Another story outlines how a tube driver was suspended by Transport for London after leading a chant saying “free Palestine” on a London Underground tube as protestors boarded the train to go to a pro-Palestinian demonstration.