It’s Time to Write a New Chapter in Your Policy & Procedure Handbook

An Ethical Guide to People Practices During Civil Unrest and Government Enforcement Activity

Most policy and procedure handbooks were written for stability.

They assume predictable operating conditions, emotionally regulated workforces, clear legal boundaries, and the ability to rely on “business as usual.” But periods of civil unrest and visible government enforcement activity expose a critical gap: many people systems were never designed for fear, uncertainty, or uneven risk, especially not in the United States.

This guide is written for I/O psychology professionals, HR leaders, and people operations practitioners who are being asked to navigate that gap. The principles listed here are scalable and apply equally to small businesses, nonprofits, and large organizations, regardless of industry or headcount.

While recent immigration enforcement activity has brought these issues into sharper focus, the principles outlined here apply broadly to any moment when external instability disrupts employee safety, trust, and psychological capacity.

This is not a political argument.
It is an ethical one.

Why Existing Handbooks Fail Under Instability

Under conditions of unrest, policies that are technically compliant can still cause harm.

When fear is high:

• cognitive load increases
  

• decision-making slows
  

• trauma responses emerge
  

• risk is not evenly distributed
  

Policies written without these realities in mind often:

• over-penalize attendance issues
  

• mistake trauma for disengagement
  

• place responsibility for safety on individuals rather than systems
  

• rely on employees to self-advocate when they are least able to do so

From an I/O perspective, performance expectations lose validity when context changes.
From an HR perspective, rigid enforcement becomes ethically indefensible.

Accept What You Can, and Cannot, Control

The external environment will continue to shift.
Sometimes toward justice.
Sometimes away from it.

No individual or organization controls all of that.

But employers do control:

• how people are treated under their authority
  

• whether fear is amplified or eased
  

• whether silence protects or abandons
  

• whether disagreement becomes hostility

Small actions matter because they interrupt harm locally, even when larger systems remain unresolved.

Employers do not have an obligation to obstruct law enforcement or place themselves or their employees in physical danger. However, they do have an ethical responsibility to be transparent about how they will handle pressure to disclose employee information.

Trust is not broken by the existence of enforcement activity; it is broken when organizations abandon previously implied protections without warning. Clear communication about data privacy, legal escalation, and the limits of organizational authority allows employees to make informed decisions about their own risk.

Workforce Protection & Flexibility

Ethical people practices begin with reducing preventable strain, and these protections should extend to hourly, frontline, and contract workers whenever the organization controls scheduling, presence, or access to work.

During periods of acute unrest:

• Suspend non-essential performance metrics and deadlines.
  Productivity pressure during instability amplifies burnout, errors, and attrition.
  

• Allow flexible scheduling so employees can avoid protests, checkpoints, or heightened enforcement presence.
  

• Offer paid time for civic, legal, or family needs related to the unrest, including court appearances, school disruptions, or caregiving demands.
  

• Explicitly protect employees from retaliation for prioritizing safety over attendance when conditions are unstable.

These actions are not accommodations for a few, they are stabilizers for the whole system.

Psychological & Emotional Safety

Unrest reduces capacity. Keep in mind that managers should also be given guidance and support, not just responsibility, when navigating ethical ambiguity under pressure.

• Normalize reduced output in leadership messaging.
  Say it plainly: “We do not expect business as usual.”
  

• Train managers to recognize trauma responses such as withdrawal, irritability, indecision, and cognitive fatigue, so employees are not mislabeled as unmotivated or difficult.
  

• Designate quiet or decompression spaces for employees who are physically present and overwhelmed.
  

• Offer optional, professionally facilitated group check-ins.
  These should never be mandatory, manager-led, or framed as therapy.
  

Psychological safety is an operational infrastructure, not a perk.

Communication & Trust

In unstable environments, confusion escalates harm faster than bad news.

• Centralize all official updates in one clearly defined channel.
  

• Commit to transparency even when information is incomplete.
  A simple framework works best:
  Here’s what we know. Here’s what we don’t. Here’s when we’ll update.
  

• Avoid political positioning unless directly relevant to employee safety or legal obligations.
  

• Name inequitable impacts directly.
  Neutral language does not create fair outcomes when risk is unevenly distributed.

Trust is built by honesty, even when you are uncertain.

Legal, Ethical, and Data Protection

Periods of enforcement activity introduce heightened ethical risk around information sharing.

Employers should:

• Reaffirm data-privacy commitments, particularly regarding immigration status, health information, and location data.
  

• Audit access controls and surveillance practices to ensure they cannot be misused or externally compelled without due process.
  

• Document all safety-related decisions to protect both employees and the organization.
  

• Establish a clear refusal-and-escalation protocol so managers know when not to comply with informal requests from authorities or third parties.
  

Silence and overcompliance are both forms of exposure.

Physical Safety & Operations

Operational choices communicate values whether leaders intend them to or not.

• Conduct daily risk assessments, recognizing that conditions can change hour by hour.
  

• Provide transportation support when public transit is disrupted or unsafe.
  

• Clearly define “essential presence.”
  If employees must be on-site, leadership should be able to articulate why with a strong supporting business reason beyond “culture.”
  

• Empower on-site leaders to suspend operations immediately without penalty if safety deteriorates.
  

Safety decisions should never rely on individual bravery.

Leadership Accountability

Ethical flexibility during instability does not require permanent policy change, but it does require consistency, documentation, and clear criteria for when temporary measures are lifted.

Ethical leadership during unrest requires:

• modeling compliance with safety measures rather than exempting executives
  

• assigning a named crisis lead with real authority
  

• resisting hero narratives about “pushing through”
  

• following instability with reflection, listening, and policy revision

Trust is either strengthened or permanently damaged in these moments.

Civil unrest and government enforcement activity introduce conditions that many existing people policies never accounted for.

Ethical leadership requires recognizing when those conditions change and responding with restraint, transparency, and care. Employees who are required to work for economic survival are not freely consenting to risk, and organizations have a responsibility to account for that reality.

When employers acknowledge fear instead of dismissing it, protect information instead of yielding it, and adjust expectations instead of enforcing normalcy, they become a stabilizing force during instability.

That is the work of ethical people systems, and the chapter most handbooks have yet to write.

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Note: This piece is intended to support HR and people leaders who are navigating real ethical tension in real time. It is not legal advice, and it is not political advocacy. It is an invitation to design people systems that do not abandon humanity when conditions become uncomfortable.