In every workplace, no matter how small or large the workforce, you’ll find employees of a wide range of religious affiliations and beliefs. And because of this, companies need to take proactive steps to guard against incidents of religious discrimination in their workplace.
“Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of l964 prohibits employers from discriminating against individuals because of their religion in hiring, firing, and other terms and conditions of employment,” according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Web site. Due in great part to an increase in religious discrimination claims filed over the past several years, the EEOC also has recently issued extensive, updated compliance guidance relating to religious discrimination, focusing largely on religious accommodation issues.
What Constitutes Religious Discrimination in the Workplace?
Generally speaking, and subject to a very narrow religious organizations exemption applying only to specifically defined religious entities, religious discrimination under Title VII occurs when employers treat applicants or employees either less or more favorably because of any religious beliefs or practices. And, employers must reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs and/or practices unless doing so would impose an undo hardship.
For example, an employer can’t:
· Refuse to hire individuals based on their religious affiliations;
· Impose stricter promotion requirements for a person with a certain religion;
· Force employees to participate in any religious activities as a condition of employment; or
· Impose different work requirements for an employee because of that employee’s religious beliefs or practices.
Employers have to consider accommodating an employee’s religious beliefs or practices, regardless of whether or not they agree with the employee’s religious affiliation. As noted above, the only time an employee’s religious beliefs or practices do not have to be accommodated is when it can be shown that an accommodation would cause undue hardship to the employer.
One of the biggest mistakes employers make is refusing an employee’s request for religious accommodation, such as providing a flexible work schedule to accommodate an employee’s religious practices.
The worst thing an employer can do in this case is to automatically dismiss the request without considering it, and tell the employee, “We don’t consider religious requests” or “We expect you to be at work when we tell you to be.”
There may end up being no feasible, reasonable accommodation for the employee, meaning any kind of accommodation would cause undue hardship for the employer because of the nature of their business and/or the nature of the employee’s job.
But the employee still has the right to ask for the accommodation, and subsequently, the employer is obligated to consider the request.
Although employers must allow, within applicable parameters, employees to engage in religious expression in the workplace, they must also take proactive steps to guard against employees generally proselytizing in the workplace (ex, preaching or forcing one’s beliefs on to another person), where that behavior crosses the line to infringe on the workplace rights of others in the form of either harassment or disruption of work operations.
In my next Insight, I'll cover adding religious discrimination to your company's anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies as well as explain why your company must remain neutral regarding religion.