What does civic engagement have to do with the workplace?

At first, the answer may seem obvious: not much. Businesses exist to provide goods and services, create jobs, generate revenue, and serve their customers. Civic participation, meanwhile, is generally understood as something people do outside of work such as voting in elections, attending public meetings, volunteering in their communities, or contacting elected officials. Because political conversations can create tension among employees, many companies understandably choose to keep politics out of the workplace altogether.

Yet that separation is not as complete as it might appear. Every business operates within a community, and every employee is also a member of that community. Companies depend on public infrastructure, schools, transportation systems, public safety, and other institutions shaped by civic decisions. Employees interact with government at the local, state, and federal levels, whether they realize it or not. Decisions made in city halls, county offices, state legislatures, and Congress can influence everything from economic development and transportation to education and workforce policy.

This creates an important question for businesses: Can a company encourage civic literacy without turning the workplace into a political environment?

The answer is yes. In fact, businesses have an opportunity to approach civic engagement much like other forms of professional development. Civic literacy does not require employees to agree politically. Instead, it gives them the knowledge and skills necessary to better understand the communities in which they live and work.

Part of the challenge begins with how we define politics. In everyday conversation, politics often refers to elections, political parties, candidates, and controversial policy debates. Those subjects can certainly enter the workplace, and employers may have legitimate reasons for establishing boundaries around partisan activity or political disagreements among employees.

Civic life, however, is much broader.

Civic literacy includes understanding how government works, knowing which institutions are responsible for particular decisions, evaluating information about public issues, and understanding the different ways individuals can participate in their communities.¹ It also involves developing the ability to communicate with people who hold different perspectives and participate constructively in public life.

These skills do not require a particular political viewpoint. An employee does not have to identify with a political party to understand the responsibilities of a city council. Someone does not have to support a particular candidate to understand how elections are administered. An employee can learn how a bill moves through a state legislature without being told whether that bill is good or bad. Similarly, someone can learn how to evaluate the credibility of information without being directed toward a particular political conclusion.

This distinction allows businesses to support civic learning while maintaining a nonpartisan workplace culture. The goal is not to tell employees what to think. It is to give them the tools to understand the systems around them and make informed decisions for themselves.

Businesses already recognize that employees benefit from developing skills beyond their immediate job responsibilities. Professional-development programs commonly focus on communication, leadership, financial literacy, project management, conflict resolution, and critical thinking. Civic literacy can complement these areas because many of the skills involved in civic participation are also valuable professional skills.

Consider an employee who serves on a local nonprofit board or attends meetings of a municipal advisory committee. That employee is likely to encounter unfamiliar perspectives, competing priorities, limited resources, and complex decisions. Participating effectively requires listening, asking questions, analyzing information, communicating clearly, and finding areas of common ground.

Those are professional skills.

Civic participation can also expose employees to the broader environment in which their company operates.² An employee who understands local economic-development policies may have a better sense of why a particular region is attracting new businesses. Someone who understands transportation planning may better appreciate the challenges faced by employees commuting to work. An employee who follows local education policy may have a deeper understanding of workforce-development challenges affecting the company’s future talent pool.

This does not mean every employee needs to become an expert in public policy. It simply means that civic knowledge can help employees better understand the environment surrounding their organization. For leaders, the benefits can be even more significant. Effective leaders need to understand not only their organizations but also the communities and institutions with which those organizations interact.

The connection between civic literacy and corporate responsibility becomes even clearer when we consider the relationship between businesses and their communities. A company cannot operate independently of the society around it. Businesses rely on roads, utilities, telecommunications networks, schools, courts, public safety agencies, and other systems supported and governed through public institutions. Companies recruit employees from local communities, sell products and services to residents, and depend on the economic health of the places where they operate.

Consequently, businesses have an interest in the health of those communities.

Corporate responsibility has traditionally been associated with environmental sustainability, charitable giving, ethical business practices, and community investment.³ These remain important, but civic engagement can also be part of that broader conversation.

Supporting civic literacy does not require a company to take political positions. Instead, it can mean helping employees understand the communities they are part of and encouraging them to participate in those communities responsibly.

There are practical ways to do this. Companies can incorporate civic topics into professional-development programs, offering workshops on how local government works, how public policy is developed, or how residents can participate in civic institutions. A company headquartered in Charlotte, for example, could help employees understand the roles of Charlotte City Council, Mecklenburg County government, the North Carolina General Assembly, and other institutions that affect the region.

Businesses can also support community involvement through volunteer programs. Many companies already encourage employees to volunteer, but these programs can be viewed through a broader civic lens. Volunteering is more than an opportunity to give back. It can introduce employees to people, organizations, and challenges they may not encounter in their professional or personal lives.

An employee who volunteers with a food bank may gain a better understanding of food insecurity. Someone who mentors students may learn more about educational challenges in their community. An employee who participates in a neighborhood improvement project may develop a greater appreciation for local infrastructure and community development. Businesses can support these experiences by providing volunteer hours, organizing service opportunities, or connecting employees with local organizations.

Civic literacy can also be incorporated into information-literacy training. Employees encounter enormous amounts of information every day through social media, news organizations, podcasts, government agencies, political campaigns, and other sources. Helping employees evaluate that information critically is valuable regardless of their political beliefs.

Professional-development programs can teach employees how to identify credible sources, distinguish fact from opinion, recognize misleading claims, and locate reliable primary sources. These skills benefit both the employee and the organization.

Perhaps most importantly, businesses can create opportunities for civic learning without requiring political agreement. Employees should never feel that their professional advancement depends on holding particular political beliefs or participating in specific political activities. The purpose of a corporate civic-literacy initiative should be education and opportunity, not advocacy.

A company can teach employees how a city council operates without telling them which candidates to support. It can explain how elections work without telling employees how to vote. It can provide information about a community issue without prescribing a particular political position.

This approach is especially important because democratic societies require people to interact across differences. The same is true of successful organizations. Employees inevitably encounter colleagues, customers, and partners who have different experiences and perspectives. Learning how to navigate those differences respectfully is both a civic skill and a professional skill.

For many adults, formal civic education ends in high school or college. After that, opportunities to learn about government and civic participation often become informal and inconsistent. People may learn about public issues through social media, news coverage, conversations with friends, or personal experiences with government.

The workplace can help fill that gap.

Companies already bring adults together for professional training, leadership development, and community engagement. Civic literacy can be incorporated into those existing structures without fundamentally changing organizational culture. An annual civic-literacy workshop, a community-service program, resources about local government, or support for employees who want to serve on nonprofit boards or community committees can all create meaningful opportunities for civic participation.

None of these activities requires a company to become political. Instead, they recognize that employees have lives and responsibilities beyond their job descriptions and that the health of the communities where employees live ultimately affects the organizations that employ them.

Businesses are right to be cautious about political activity in the workplace. Employees should be able to work in environments where they are respected regardless of their political beliefs, and employers should avoid creating pressure to conform to a particular ideology. But avoiding partisan politics does not require avoiding civic education.

There is an important space between political advocacy and civic learning, and businesses have an opportunity to occupy that space thoughtfully. By incorporating civic literacy into professional development, supporting community volunteerism, encouraging participation in civic organizations, and teaching employees how to evaluate information, companies can help employees become more informed and engaged members of their communities without telling them what to believe.⁴

Ultimately, businesses do not need to become political organizations to recognize their connection to civic life. Their success is tied to the strength of the communities in which they operate, and their employees are not only workers—they are members of those communities.

A civically literate employee is better positioned to understand local institutions, evaluate information, navigate differences, and participate constructively in public life. Those capabilities have value far beyond Election Day.

The workplace does not need to become a political forum. It can, however, become a place where people are encouraged to become better-informed citizens.

To find out how you can partner with CivicsEDU to bring civic education programming to your business’ professional development offerings, visit our Programs page for more information.

1. Khoiriyah, I. N., Sutisna, A., & Tjalla, A. (2025). Dynamics Of Citizenship Literacy Perception Among Indonesian Senior High School Students. Eduvest – Journal of Universal Studies. https://doi.org/10.59188/eduvest.v5i7.51622 ↩︎
2. Schlachter, L., & Ársælsson, K. (2024). Civic Work: Making a Difference on and off the Clock. American Journal of Sociology, 130, 44 – 87. https://doi.org/10.1086/730771 ↩︎
3. Camilleri, M. (2017). Corporate sustainability and responsibility: creating value for business, society and the environment. Asian Journal of Sustainability and Social Responsibility, 2, 59 – 74. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41180-017-0016-5 ↩︎
4. Conely, L. H. M., & Cordie, L. A. (2023). The Learning Democracy: The Relationship Between Adult Informal Learning, Lifelong Learning Mindset, and Civic Engagement. Adult Learning, 34, 142 – 156. https://doi.org/10.1177/10451595231161345 ↩︎