Key Issues with Religious Discrimination in the Workplace - Research Proposal Example

Key Issues with Religious Discrimination in the Workplace Contents Contents 2 Introduction 3 Literature Review 4 Discussion 9 Cases of Discriminationin major companies 9 Major findings 12 Steps to be Taken by Companies 14 Conclusion 15 References 16 Introduction Globalised economy has its effect on the workplace behaviour. With increasing pressure organizations are fast changing their workplace ethics so as to attain higher profitability. Organizations are resorting to discriminations on grounds of religion. All across the world the workplace is becoming more religiously diverse this is raising concerns about such increasing discrimination. In countries like United States and United Kingdom such kinds of discriminations are on the rise since the faith of employees have become more diverse. It has resulted in legal headaches for companies and thus it exposes the complexities of managing the job. Companies who are small or big are being affected by intermixing of faith and work. Religious discrimination starts with dress codes and grooming clash. Job duties start with changing policies like issuing of marriage license in case of gay couple. It test workers adherence to their religious beliefs. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission gets a range of complaint from the workers. There are instances when an employee objects to deliver alcohol because of their Islamic faith. Another suit which was filed to EEOC involves biometric hand scanning technology. Similarly an evangelical Christian employee didn’t want to scan based on Bible passage from Bible because is such cases antichrist will force people to receive his mark on forehead. According to experts on law and religion the rising conflict of immigration is because of growing assertiveness of workers towards religion. Diversity combined with increasing willingness of people to raise issue leads to increasing instances of workplace discrimination complaints. It is seen that employers don’t let employees to practice their religion. Previously it was seen that religion based complaints were a small portion of workplace bias complaints as compared to discrimination on the basis of sex, age, disability and race. But according to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission the number of complaints received on the basis of religion has doubled in the past ten years. According to EEOC, the number of religion based complaints received was 3,800 in the year 2012, which was second highest after the record of 4, 100 such complaints received in 2011. It some cases managers told the employees not to wear hijabs which are normally worn by women. Long skirts which are prevalent among Christian women, turbans and beards among Sikhs are often not allowed. Report takes a look at the key issues regarding religious discrimination in the Workplace. Literature Review In the times of globalization it is important for most of the organization to incorporate practices that would ensure that the organization has equal opportunity for people coming from various diversities. An organization that practices multicultural practices has to formulate the policies in such a way that the different types of demands of the people working are met in the right way (Rice, 1999). It is an essential aspect of an organization that it maintains a proper ethical standard regarding the uniformity in the standards for the people of all religion. There would be multitude of cultures and groups formed on the basis of their religion. The managers need to thoroughly understand the need for the cultural standards of the employees. A lot research has been conducted on the influence of the religion on the minds of the employees of an organization. Studies have proved that more than 80% of the people who are being studied in the context of religious diversity in the organizations consider that the religion that they belong to is important for their personal lives and also influences the daily lives that they lead (Sedikides, 2010). These studies have been conducted for the people around the world. At the present day, since most of the organizations are promoting multiculturalism it is important for those to prepare a platform for the employees so that the workplace becomes a neutral zone where people of all background can work in harmony with each other (Mellahi and Budhwar, 2010). In such scenario religion would be considered only a part of the workplace culture and would not comprise of the entire culture. In other words the workplace has to remain secular at all the levels. On the other hand it is also important to point out the relation between the practices and beliefs of the employees in any organization and the strategies that the management takes so that the managers can get the most out of the employees of the organization. Rollins is one of the most popular practitioners who have made several studies regarding the behaviour of the employees which is based on the religion. It has been found that a Jew would prefer to work on a Sunday rather than a Saturday because they are mainly Sabbath in faith. On the other hand a Muslim worker from Saudi Arabia would require a break at his workplace to find time for his daily players. A worker coming from the Christian origin will try to decorate the office premises with Christmas trees or a nativity scene (Rollins, 2007). The atheists are opposed to the principles of religion inclusivity because they believe there are far too many religions to get accommodated. Some of the researchers are of the opinion that there should be an agnostic approach to every workplace. This is mainly because of the fact that that it might turn out to be a challenge for the organizations to respect and make place for the all the religions in an organization which has people from all religious backgrounds (Canas and Sondak, 2011). These researchers have considered that the practice of religion is mostly a private rather than a professional aspect. Hence the managers should provide less importance to the religious aspects of the workplace. Some of the researchers have pointed out that the religion of the employees has provided a lot of benefit to the organization in a number of ways. The employees of an organization get associated with one another in terms of the religious practices. This inculcates in them a very nice work value and moulds their attitude towards the work that they do in the organization. The employees are involved in the voluntary activities and display an ethical behaviour towards the co-workers (Parboteeah, Paik and Cullen, 2009). There is enough research that has been conducted on the management of diversity in the organizations. Most of the empirical evidences have shown that if an organization is found to practice religious diversity there are a number of benefits that the organization derives from such practices (Syed and Pio, 2010). These may arise in form of the reduction in the costs for the companies. There may also be benefit in the forms of creativity of the organization which may not be limited in terms of the work done by the people and processes of the organization but also by taking proper marketing strategies by the organization which might help the company to enlarge the customer base. The diversity among the employees may also help in the problem-solving as well as extending flexibility in the ways the work is done in every departments of the organization. Various literatures have been written on the responsibilities of the employers regarding the diversity practices in the organization. While the employers have some duties the employees also have some duties towards the co-workers and as well as there are certain rights which all of them should exercise (Cash, Gray and Rood, 2000). Most of the employees and the managers have the similar kind of attitude towards employees coming from different religious backgrounds. It has been found out through the studies that the employees who are religious in nature are considered to be responsible for the management of the religious activities in the organization and they would try to mould the organization culture and the religious practices according to the various kinds of needs that they have. Communication is one of the concepts that are considered to be extremely important in the context of organization culture. The managers need to communicate with the employees or the teams that they are handing in order to enquire the practices and the rights that they would demand to have in the organization so that their religious needs are being fulfilled. For example the employees may seek flexibility in the organization due to their religious festivals or the cultural practices that they would undertake. Thus the organization and the human resources managers have to accommodate the various kinds of practices that have to be accommodative for the people of all the religions who work in the organization. The organization should make the working set up in such a way that the employees who are religious do not have any problem working with individual who has a different religious belief or are agnostic in nature. There should be willingness among the employees to cooperate and adjust with the employees of a different religious background. For this there must be effective communication among the employees of the organization and there should not be any scope of potential barrier to the entire process of communication. In the organization which has diversity practices there might be a lot of scope for the conflict. This has to be solved in the most secular way possible. The managers should try to take a neutral point of view in the cases of such conflict resolution and should have respect and understanding for the views for all the employees in a uniform. For this the supervisors and the employees should be provided with the right amount of training regarding how to deal with the employees in times of the conflicts. Along with this there is also a need to implement policies that would ensure that there is an atmosphere of balance and equity that would make sure that most of the employees are treated in terms of their religious practices and the privileges that they would derive while working in the organization. Most of the multinational organizations of the world have operations in different countries of the world. In each of these countries the religious practices are different. Therefore the various kinds of laws pertaining to the religious practices are also different in the countries. For example, in the country of Australia, there are definite rules, that govern the workplaces in the country. According to the legal framework of the country, any kind of racial discrimination practice in the country would result in the legal action against the employee, manager or the organization itself. Thus no candidate can get qualified or rejected from a job simple based on the religious preference that the person exhibits. The same kinds of instances of the legal framework can found in case of the United States. There are rules that would accommodate the religious needs of the individuals working in the organizations that are in operations in the United States. The freedom to practice any religious practices is included in the Civil rights of the citizens of the country and is equally applicable in the workplace. The employment equality rights are also present in the United Kingdom. This includes corrective actions on the individuals who would practice improper workplace behaviour regarding religious discrimination. However in the UK there is lack of any concrete definition for belief or discrimination in the workplace. The companies that have operations in these countries and the others with a proper legal set up has to follow the practices as considered to be feasible for the judiciary of the country. Discussion Cases of Discrimination in major companies Religion or belief is not defined properly in the Regulations. Discrimination means that workers or employees are not treated fairly and hence are treated differently because of they tend to follow a particular belief or religion. It is unlawful on part of an employer to decide on employment of an individual, dismiss them, deny promotion, and refuse them to provide training, not giving promotion on the basis of his religion. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has seen rise in filing of religious discrimination against many organizations like hair-salon, fast-food, retail, hotel, aviation, health service and medical industries. Many companies like Wall-Marts, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. are spending millions of dollars in conducting training on religious discrimination even in case they deny any wrongdoing on their part. Abercrombie decided to pay $ 71,000 to two Muslim women from Saudi Arabia so as to settle lawsuits of EEOC. Their complaints were that they were not allowed to wear hijabs. One of the women named Umme-Hani Khan was fired from her company since she violated Look Policy dress code of the company (Vickers, 2008). Another lawsuit was regarding refusal of Abercrombie to hire an applicant sine she wore a hijab. This settlement against Abercrombie led to several other rulings against the company in federal court in California. But it is seen that in many cases EEOC does not win the fight. In another lawsuit it was seen that the company Abercrombie didn’t hire a candidate because the applicant was wearing hijab. But in this case federal court sided with the company. The court told that the applicant who wore the hijab didn’t inform the company that she would wear scarf because of her religious beliefs and hence she would need a separate accommodation since it would create a conflict with the dress code. Spokesman of Abercrombie told that they were pleased with the court ruling since they believed that no request was made by the complainant. Hence it was established that the company didn’t discriminate the employees based on the religion and that they were able to grant reasonable accommodations to these applicant who requested them. The court further stated that Abercrombie must regularly review the decisions of religious accommodation to ensure that consistency is maintained with respect to policies. Recently there have been demands by many companies that how far religious liberties should be extended on the basis of rise in complaints. Religious liberty should be extended to the employees to such a point that it shouldn’t cause any hardship to the operations of a company. Undue hardship is defined as the situations when more than minimal costs are incurred by a company to accommodate a worker, which results in decrease in operational efficiency and as a result creates burden on other employees. In the same year EEOC filed a lawsuit against Star Transport Inc. It alleged that the trucking company fired Muslim workers from Saudi Arabia since they refused to carry alcohol in the trucks. EEOC told that their investigation showed that two workers would have delivered other products without any undue hardship. They were told specifically to deliver alcohol which they refused because of their religious belief. It is important for companies to accommodate such kind of workers. Such accommodations include shift swapping between the employees, flexible schedules of work time, or any reassignment to department or another job. But companies have to incur costs for rearranging schedules. Companies have to pay occasional for overtime. But these do not constitute undue hardship. But paying regularly for overtime and hiring more workers don’t constitute hardship. It is seen that size of a business matters in such cases. According to EEOC an organization which has many facilities will able to accommodate more number of workers who requests for transfer of location to nearby place of worship which they can attend during lunch. Cost is not always an issue in such cases. Workers sometimes ask their employers to provide them with designated time and space so that they can pray in appropriate time at their office. Hence it is important for the managers to treat everybody fairly, but in doing so they might be actually breaking the law, since they have to provide some of the employees with different spaces for praying. Sometimes it is not possible for a company to fulfil all the demands of the employees at the same time. For example if a company with ten personnel department is forced to give all the employees Sabbath, it would put strain on the business, as it may cost inconvenience or substantial cost. Similar case was observed when EEOC filed lawsuits against Consol Energy Inc. Here a worker objected to biometric scanning of its hand. He believed that it was against a warning from Bible which indicated the mark of an antichrist. The scanner was used by the company to track the workers’ time. EEOC alleged that Consol Energy Inc. didn’t accommodate the employee because of its belief, but he was fired instead of the fact that the company made exception for workers who had their fingers missing. The company said that they respected the religious beliefs of their employees, but it was necessary to install the hand scanner since it was a necessary to ensure accurate compensation for them. Wal-Mart decided to pay $ 70,000 to train the employees in order to settle lawsuit against them by EEOC. It was alleged that Richards Nichols who was the assistant manager of Wal-Mart store at was threatened to be killed because of refusing to work on Sundays during his Sabbath. Mr. Nichols was granted off on Sundays for fourteen years but it was suddenly stopped in 2009. It was due to revision of scheduling system. As a result the company started logging him as absent on Sundays. He couldn’t swap shifts with other employees because of some problem. This resulted in religion discrimination by Wal-Mart Store. Randy Hargrove who was the spokesperson of Wal-Mart told that they had the practice of accommodating the religious practices and beliefs of their workers. But it was the fault of Mr. Nichols since he stopped swapping his shift with other employees and also didn’t show up on Sundays. But Mr. Nichols complained that it was difficult for him to swap with other workers since he couldn’t swap with a cart pusher. In spite of the fact that religion based complaints were on the rise, EEOC has filed a far fewer complaints. It was seen that EEOC filed nine lawsuits in the year 2012. But it was less as compared to 24 in the year 2010. But even today the religious charges remain high after 9/11 terrorists attack on Twin Towers. Major findings According to a survey one of the main factors which contributed to conflicts in the workplace was that the evangelicals are much more inclined to talk about their faith than any other religious groups. Evangelicals are very strict about their religious identity. It was seen that around half of the white evangelical Protestants told that they like to share their religious beliefs with their co-workers. According to a Survey of American Workers and Religion in 2013, 50 % of them shared their beliefs as compared to 22 percent of other workers. When it was detailed further it was found that around one-third of the evangelicals were reported to have discussed about their religion, as compared to ten percent of Catholics, fourteen percent of non-Christian believers and seven percent of mainland Protestants. Evangelical employees are found to be very comfortable with them sharing about their religious beliefs to their co-workers. But non believers told that they were not comfortable with the idea of sharing their religious beliefs with other employees. This sets the tone for clashes at workplace between evangelical and atheist Protestants. Such kind of findings points the fact that workplace diversity is increasing. With such huge workplace diversity it was becoming extremely difficult for the company to formulate policies. Clearly the difference between the evangelicals and other workers needs to be taken care of. It was concluded that instead of sharing their specifics faith with each other it would have been much better had they simply focused on developing friendships with other employees, it would generate a healthy workplace environment (Wolf, Friedman and  Sutherland, 1998). It was seen that as workforce becomes more diverse with more diversity in society, the mangers faces corresponding rise in religious related conflicts. Such issues range from lack of accommodations for the religious beliefs, harassment and other work related practices which the employees are legally entitled to engage in work. But according to many consultants, there are many upsides to such a trend. If an employer can adapt to such religious diversity, it will help in reducing conflict among the employees. It helps to improve employee morale along with employee performance by attracting the best talent from a range of backgrounds which can help organization appeal to many customers base. It is seen that with pluralistic and diverse workforce helps the organization learn different things. It was found out that the discrimination against Muslims occurred mainly involving their policies and dress codes. In today’s’ workplace the conflicts have become more personal like name calling. It is seen that typically much of the discrimination occurs between an employee and supervisor and between the employees themselves. These are a form of personal prejudices against each other. According to Tanenbaum report, perception of religious discrimination varies within certain groups. It was found that 66 percent of the Muslims from Saudi Arabia face discrimination while around 55 percent of the atheist faces biasness. The report further founded out those racial, religious and other minorities groups are not the only employees who are the victims of discrimination. It was further founded out that around 40 percent of evangelical Christians have claimed to have faced a lot of discriminations. Around 59 percent of the Christians see discrimination as a big issue (Gregory, 2011). Steps to be Taken by Companies Many managers while looking at above figures may conclude that it is not worth to have such kind of diverse workforce. It is not worth to have potential headaches because of this. According to them it involves high cost to employ such strategy in an organization. Hence many employers have decided to cut down much top talent which they have so that in the long run the economic cost is reduced. But they cannot ignore at the same time that best talent does not come from only one religion. According to Federal Law no employs can discriminate them on the basis of religion and hence they are needed to make fair accommodations for the workers so that they can practice the faith. It is clear from that Court ruling though it is important for employers to regulate the behaviour but it does not give them the right to force workers to violate their conscience. Thus accommodating the religious needs of the workers can help the organization in retaining the talent. Companies which give flexible working hours are seen that they are more likely to return to work the next day. In case of organizations which have policies of religious discrimination, employees don’t go out looking for new job. In case of companies which offer education programs to their workers about the religious beliefs, diversity and practice. Such kind of practice reports higher job satisfaction among the works as compared to companies which don’t adopt such policy. Conclusion Religious discrimination in the workplace is on rise due increase in diversity within the workers. Employers should look at encouraging interfaith approach which involves creating resource groups within the employees. It signifies that the company respects all religious identities instead of representing conflicting interests. In such cases the members of interfaith group can educate each other about their religious beliefs and help the organization formulate polices which accommodates multiple religious needs and helps in settling conflicts in the organization. Beside such kind of benefits the working groups which are based on individual religious identity and faith helps the company in meeting the needs of the customers. For example by understanding the dietary restrictions of different faith traditions can help hospitality business grow its market size. Hence religion discrimination should not be looked at only threat, but it provides opportunity to the employers to improve the operational efficiency of the organization. Policies like giving holidays on religious holidays are a must for companies so that no discrimination can take. Religious diversity should be tried to contained as much as possible by acting as fast as possible. This will stop spreading bad mouth about the company. Policies like giving holidays on religious holidays are a must for companies so that no discrimination can take. References Canas, K. and Sondak, H. (2011). Opportunities and challenges of workplace diversity. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Cash, K.C., Gray, G.R. and Rood, S.A. (2000). “A Framework for accommodating religion and spirituality in the workplace.” The Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 14 (3), pp. 124-34. Gregory, R.F. (2011). 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