Religion in the workplace, a diversity issue
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- November
- 29
According to USINFO article, American corporations are looking for guidance on how to handle religion in the workplace, how to accommodate workers various beliefs and practices.
The article states that where before religion was a non-issue, the increased immigration by Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and other groups, has resulted in a more religiously diverse workforce.
Citing David Miller, executive director of Yale University’s Center for Faith and Culture, the article states that according to U.S. law, an employee’s beliefs and practices has to be accommodated so long as it doesn’t impose undue burden on the employer.
However, there are other reasons companies have for wanting to deal with religion in the workplace, Miller told USINFO.
For the employee: ÂÂ
• It’s can be a source of ethical guidance.
• It can help people find meaning and purpose in their work.
• It can help them stay “anchored” in their work environment.
For the employer:
• Respecting religious differences helps attract and retain talented employees.
• Enables companies to reach out to a larger customer base.
Examples of what might require religious accomodation:ÂÂ
Georgette Bennett, president of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, issues that can require accommodation could be …
• The wearing of religiously significant attire such as hijabs (headscarves worn by Muslim women), crosses or yarmulkes.
• Taking time off for religious observance.
• Having facilities for prayer breaks and meditation.
Also, the article states, a few years ago, the Tanenbaum Center helped put together a panel at General Motors (GM) consisting of individuals who were members of different religions.
Panel participants discussed what they value about their beliefs, how those beliefs have been stereotyped and how that affected them, and how their beliefs affect their work life.
What are your thoughts on this? Is there religious diversity in your workplace? Do you feel your coworkers value your faith? Is your religion stereotyped? If yes, how so? How do your beliefs or others’ beliefs affect your work environment?
This entry was posted
on Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 4:27 pm by Christina Jeng.
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Today is NYC’s Day OUt Against Hate a day focused on tolerance and understanding. After speaking with several people of different races and faiths it’s clear that overwhelmingly, anything that is different from what we know is put down. This comes from fear of the unknown and we’re all so self centered we simply don’t want to take the time to get to know and understand another point of view or ritual or faith. In our office religion is not mentioned, nobody overtly observes anything. I’m sure we all have questions about one another and as part of our individual faiths it it our duty to share with others. I was at http://www.onedialog.com today for their forum on religion and it was overwhelming (and I was actually embarassed by my ignorance I didn’t event comment) how much we really don’t know about religion outside of our own.
Religion isn’t an issue where I work.
Most people who work in my office are Christian, of one kind or another. Some practice, some don’t. Nobody makes an issue of it either way.
There are some Jewish people and some Muslims. Religion is openly discussed and acknowledged, but not a big issue.
I don’t see why it’s necessary for religion to be a big ‘diversity’ issue. I think a lot of these ‘diversity’ issues could benefit from a little benign neglect, rather than belaboring them to death, as we are so prone to do today.
The only religious issue at my workplace is that one of the owners of the company is Catholic, so we get Good Friday and Christmas off. Which, seeing as it’s a weekly newspaper, cramps the schedule a bit but is usually pretty welcome.
As for my coworkers, I’d suspect most of them are Christian or Jewish, but I don’t actually know. It’s just not something people talk about – and the company’s pretty good about letting us have personal days off, so it’s not hard to work around religious schedules.
(By the way, I love the blog – I’ve been lurking for a while, but this kind of issue is fascinating for me, even if I’ve never had to deal with discrimination myself. (Raised as an upper-middle-class white christian male))