Have Any Training & Development Departments Asked to be Political?

Have any of you been asked to be political as part of your role as a learning professional? Has your training and development apparatus been charged with manipulating employee voting behavior or political action?

This story from Slate, about Walmart's attempts to marshal votes for Republicans, got me thinking about this.

Let us know if you know anything about training and development departments being utilized to influence elections.

What would you do if asked to develop a training initiative to modify your learners' political thinking and action? Would you do it if the training would support your preferred candidate? Would it be ethical if the training was simply designed to encourage voter turnout (realizing of course that voter turnout/registration is usually targeted to push the election one way or another)? Would it be ethical to use the training and development department if the training was truly non-partisan, not favoring either candidate or party?

Comments

[Mathew]

I wouldn't feel comfortable attempting to modify participants' thinking along political lines even if it was in support of a candidate I believed in.

[Tom]

I can't speak of any particular training department, but I can say that I am finding it hard to separate the public school teachers I know from the Democratic party. When I was in school, I couldn't recall my teachers discussing their political views. However, I am sure if you asked most students today, they could tell you what their teachers' political views are.