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In my last article for Quick Printing, I wrote about the need to accept diversity and build your competent, stable, well led workforce around a rapidly changing labor pool. The increased movement of people from other countries and backgrounds to the U.S. has forced employers to reexamine their previous notions about hiring. As you attempt to fill critical work spaces, you will be seeing more people with different cultural backgrounds and different religious beliefs and practices. As business owners, we all need to find ways to integrate these people into our workforce and to benefit from the mix.
In this article I would like to go beyond the hire and provide some current guidelines on the integration of diversity, particularly when it introduces the need to accept and accommodate dress and appearances that many owners have tried to control through the publication of dress codes and grooming standards.
The Impact of Religious Beliefs and Practices
Religion is broadly defined to include any sincere and meaningful belief that includes a system of moral or ethical beliefs of what is right and wrong and which are sincerely held. This can even include atheism or agnosticism.
You have a duty to honor a request for accommodation of an employee's religious practices or beliefs. A refusal is justified only when the employer can show that it would result in an undue hardship. Most accommodations involve requests for rearrangement of work schedules, time off for religious observances, or permission to wear religious clothing or symbols. This means, of course, that you must work with the employee, co-workers, and supervisors in order to arrive at an appropriate accommodation.
You may hesitate to grant requests for employee schedule changes or time off, not only because of potential accusations of favoritism, but also because of the need to rearrange work schedules. Methods that other employers have found useful are flexible arrival and departure times, flexible work breaks, granting of optional or floating holidays, exchange of lunch time for early departure time, and creation of a staggered work schedule.
Promoting Religious Beliefs in the Workplace
Freedom of speech and freedom of religion are both concepts dear to most Americans. But when an employee uses these perceived freedoms to promote personal beliefs using company equipment, you should feel safe in taking action. Defining which tools are for business use only (e.g.: electronic systems) is a starting point.
Members of many religious faiths believe they have a duty to spread the "good word." Some will take advantage of the workplace to carry out this mission. You have the right to limit any conduct that interferes with work, but a ban on any discussions relating to religion in the workplace is not the answer. Unless you are ready to impose a vow of silence on all your employees with respect to any non-work related issue, you cannot allow employees to talk about sports, entertainment, lifestyle issues, etc. while banning any discussion of religion. You can establish and enforce a legitimate, non-discriminatory policy that requires employees to cease from discussing non-work-related issues which their co-workers find offensive.
Accommodating Religious Dress or Appearance
You may have to accommodate a religious employee's head coverings, robes, beards, scarifications, tattoos, face paints, religious insignias and symbols, and other outward tokens of faith. These may deviate not only from employer dress codes, but also from co-workers' expectations. You must ask yourself whether a workplace dress code is justified by business necessity. For example, you do not have to accommodate robes or long skirts in a plant where loose garments might be caught in heavy machinery. Untrimmed beards, flowing hair, and headdresses may be banned from restaurants or hospitals. However, employers have been sanctioned for forbidding religious dress or head coverings, long hair or beards for men, which are required by faith, and religious insignias or tokens of faith in an office environment.
The potential for workplace disruption is highest when a religious employee's appearance offends co-workers. If this happens, document thoroughly the nature of the problem and your attempts at resolution. Explore with the religious employee exactly what he or she feels is required by his or her religious beliefs. Confirm your conversations in writing. If other employees do object, ask them to explain in writing the nature of their objections. Finally, document the exact nature of the "disturbance" that resulted; e.g.: loud discussions, inability to concentrate on work, etc. Courts are unlikely to be sympathetic to an employer that ordered an employee not to display or wear an item of religious apparel if the employer has nothing to support its claim that the employee's actions interfered with business operations.
Deal with Religious Harassment
The religious harassment cases that occur most frequently are those in which supervisors or co-workers demean an employee's religious beliefs or practices, through insults, gestures, or other belittling conduct. I suggest that you apply the same standards for determining whether religious statements have crossed the line and become religious harassment that you would for determining whether statements regarding romance, dating, or sex have crossed the line and become sexual harassment. You should look at the frequency of the conduct, the severity of the conduct, whether the conduct was physically threatening or humiliating, and whether the conduct unreasonably interfered with work performance.
Bottom Line
There is no guarantee that disputes involving claims of discrimination can be avoided or successfully resolved, no matter how proactive you may be. Your goal is to demonstrate a spirit of accommodation. No matter what the personal religious beliefs of employees, if they have "faith" in your fairness and concern for their needs as individuals, they are much more likely to respect and adhere to your decisions.
Debra Thompson is president of TG & Associates, a consulting firm specializing in "The Human Side of Business" specifically for the graphic industry. Her company provides Virtual HR services and Customized Staffing Solutions. Debra can be reached toll free at 877/842-7762 or email her at Debra@TGassociates.com.
author: by Debra Thompson