In the weeks since the US election, Charter has been researching and reporting on the likely changes for workers and organizations during a second Trump administration. To help leaders guide their strategies, we’ve shared our recommendations in our presidential transition policy tracker.
While numerous policy changes could potentially affect workplaces, a few themes come up again and again. Here’s a high-level guide to the presidential transition:
Employers should prepare to change benefits packages and compensation, as cuts to government services and other policies create new gaps and increase the cost of living for employees. “You should expect that if government safety nets go away, there will be more pressure on you to fill the gap,” Alison Taylor, clinical associate professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, told Charter. Dr. Roger Shedlin, CEO of fertility benefits provider WIN, saw this dynamic play out in the wake of attempts to restrict access to fertility care. “The reaction has been an increase in outreach to WIN from employer benefit managers who are realizing, ‘Wow, I need to do more as an employer to deal with this,’” he says. With Republican lawmakers eyeing cuts to child care, housing assistance, student-debt relief, and healthcare access—including reproductive and gender-affirming care—there are many areas where employers might choose to shift benefits packages to respond. A possible resurgence in high inflation due to Trump’s aggressive tariff and deportation plans could also pressure employers to increase compensation in pace with any rising costs of living.
Progressive state and local legislators are preparing measures to offset the actions of Republicans in Washington, leaving employers to navigate an increasingly complex patchwork of laws. With the Trump administration expected to roll back Biden-era anti-discrimination protections and pro-worker policies, some state and local policymakers are gearing up to fill in the gaps with protections for pregnant workers, immigrant workers, and unionization efforts. We’ve already seen this phenomenon with pay transparency legislation, Christine Hendrickson, former employment lawyer and current vice president at Syndio, a pay-equity and pay-reporting software company, told Charter. “Less action at the federal level often leads to more action at the state level,” she said. “We may see a growth of and a wave of new pay-equity laws at the state level as we very much saw during the last Trump administration.”
There will be a greater focus on concrete actions, policies, and support from employers—rather than broad public statements. While many organizations have felt pressure to address every headline, holiday, and heritage month in years past, employers and customers alike have grown weary of corporate statements without meaningful action. As Richard Edelman, CEO of the communications firm Edelman, recommended during the recent Charter Workplace Summit, communications to employees should focus on the support and resources available to them. For example, proposed immigration restrictions and workplace raids will require organizations to go beyond speaking out to providing legal support and increased protections for workers. One example to emulate: Microsoft went beyond press releases in its response to 2017 immigration restrictions, launching an internal tool to help employees view their immigration status, understand the resources available to them, and access support from the company’s internal immigration team.
Business leaders should develop clarity around policies and practices now in order to effectively answer employee questions later. So much of the response to policy change (and blustering from politicians) comes down to translating arcane legal language into real workplace impact. Workers will look to their employers to understand how new legal attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs affect talent-management programs, restrictions on healthcare access affect benefits packages, and promises to end remote work federally affect flexibility policies. You can get ahead of these questions by updating resources to educate employees and managers, whether that’s a benefits FAQ page, training on legal literacy around DEI programs, or an AI chatbot trained on your internal policies.
Organizations that maintain high standards will weather much of the likely policy changes unscathed. Many of the expected changes to labor and employment policies will lower the bar of acceptable behavior, rather than limiting the actions of employers. For example, the Trump administration may reverse Biden-era workplace safety regulations, overtime protections, and the ban on non-compete agreements, but it can’t stop workplaces from maintaining best practices internally. That means employers can continue operating with high standards for worker safety and compensation, rather than doing the bare minimum to stay compliant with more lax regulations. In addition to avoiding time-consuming and potentially costly internal policy changes, it will ensure that your workplace continues to retain and attract top talent.
Workplaces already have many of the tools they need to navigate policy change—no matter how unprecedented it may seem. While crafting our recommendations for the years ahead, we often found ourselves referencing Charter’s resources we’ve previously published. We’ve shared our guide to crafting an equitable compensation strategy to address changes to overtime-pay, contractor-classification, and pay-equity regulations; our checklist for inclusive benefits education to navigate cuts to the social safety net; and our playbook on worker voice and labor-management relations to counter new barriers to unionization and workplace democracy. Organizations that have already invested in clear communication, strong cultures, and equitable policies will find that their leaders are likely already well equipped to face any challenges the next four years will bring. That’s because leaders always have the ability to work alongside employees to define what equitable, sustainable workplaces look like—and that vision doesn’t have to change, regardless of who’s in the Oval Office.
Charter Pro members can view the full presidential transition policy tracker here, to see an updated catalog of expected policy changes and specific resources and recommended actions for each one. If you don’t have a Charter Pro membership, you can join here.