SuperManager Podcast: Religion in the Workplace
Christine: You’re listening to SuperManager, the podcast for people who manage people and business with ideas, trends, and expert interviews to help you be a SuperManager.
Sam: So Merry Christmas, everyone. Merry Christmas. Oh or is it Happy Holidays? Am I supposed to say happy holidays, now there are so many things going on in the workplace, different people, different religions. Are we offending them? Are we making them feel uncomfortable at the risk of everyone feeling uncomfortable? What’s right, what’s wrong? We’re going to talk about religion in the workplace, and I have my team of super friends with me today. We have,
Vicky: Vicky, Victoria Wors, Wors Consulting.
Jerry: Jerry Richardson, I’m a lawyer at Evans and Dixon.
Mary: Mary Kutheis, Business Coach and Confidante.
Rick: Rick Shore, Business Solutions, with Legal Shield.
Sam: Samantha Naes with CN Video Production. So what about different religious holidays?
Vicky: Well, actually the protection against religious discrimination goes way back to 1964 Civil Rights Act. And the issue is that I know things have been heightened in recent years with the political fever that’s going on in the United States, but in my book, we celebrate people’s traditions. We don’t leave anybody out. If it’s your holiday as far as Merry Christmas, say Merry Christmas if it’s Happy Hanukkah.
Sam: What about time off from work though? I mean there are certain holidays where everybody takes time off from work. What if everybody honored their own religious holidays and took time off during those holidays? I mean do companies do that or are they starting to do that?
Jerry: Well, they have a legal obligation only not to discriminate against someone’s religious practice. So taking time off from work isn’t the religion per se. It’s a religious practice and the duties rather light. It’s one of reasonable accommodation. So the employer can say, use your paid time off for religious holidays and if the employee doesn’t have paid time off, and if the employer allows it, maybe the employee can trade shifts with someone who isn’t celebrating that day. There are a number of ways to reasonably accommodate, but if they’re exhausted and the employee still can’t get the day off, then the employer has the right to require the employee to work and if the employee mysteriously is absent that day, the employee can be disciplined for that and even terminated.
Rick: You think that’s where paid time off sort of emerged and gave some flexibility to people so that they have the opportunity to take the time when they desire to take the time?
Jerry: I think it’s one of many reasons.
Rick: Yeah. Yeah.
Jerry: Obligations with children or other personal medical appointments, those kinds of things.
Vicky: Most employers don’t have say, Good Friday as a holiday anymore. That used to be a normal holiday. They will do the paid time or they have selected another more government day to take an extra day off during a period of time.
Sam: What about things that are a little bit more in your face and obvious? What about prayer in the workplace? I’ve actually been to business meetings before where they say, let’s take a moment and say a prayer before the meeting. Has that ever happened in the workplace or what about even private prayer in the workplace?
Jerry: Well prayer in the workplace happens all the time with employers that are affiliated with religious organizations typically.
Sam: Sure.
Jerry: So I’ve done work for Catholic sponsored healthcare organizations. They can also happen at a private employer who has nothing to do with religion per se, but the leadership has strong religious views and wants to pray. And so the question becomes then if you’re an employee, do you have some right to participate or not? I mean, usually the, at least an employee that has some sense, maybe be quiet, but just sit there. It’s not discrimination to express religion in the workplace until you start crossing lines and it becomes like proselytizing that turns to harassment. That can be discrimination, whether from a coworker or from a supervisor.
Sam: So if I’m a supervisor and I want to say prayer before a meeting and, and someone else doesn’t participate or it’s obvious that they’re uncomfortable with it, if I’m not careful, that person could claim that I’m being unfair to them because they refuse to participate in prayer at the meetings. And it’s a protected class, so,
Jerry: Well religion is, but right now you’re drawing a line. You’re saying that, gee, there’s some repercussion for not participating in the prayer. Well, if there’s a repercussion for religious activities in the workplace that the employer is requiring, well, yes, that could be a retaliation claim, but if there’s no repercussion at all,
Sam: Yeah,
Jerry: Maybe the employer has music going in the background and it drives some workers crazy. It just comes with the job.
Vicky: Well, taking a moment of silent reflection that doesn’t really force a particular religious observance at that point. People can meditate for about a moment or so, no matter what their religious tradition or background is. One of the things that we do have, and I think it is heightened the interaction in the workplace, the idea that Christianity is the religion of the United States of America, and it’s really become pervasive in a lot of the workplaces that you’re not an American if you’re not Christian. It’s kind of an issue that some people are pushing.
Rick: We had a situation, not a situation, but kind of a culture in a company that I own for several years, and my personal belief is that it’s God’s business, not our business. We’re just stewards of that business, but I had to be careful about being evangelical in the sense of trying to encourage people to consider Christianity in their life. However, we would pray before gatherings when we got together for lunches and we did a lot of that. We did a lot of celebrating.
Sam: Did you ever have anybody that didn’t want to participate?
Rick: Well, I would ask, can we pray? Is it okay if we pray and nobody generally spoke up and said no, so I would pray. I wouldn’t put people on the spot to say the prayer. As a manager, if I had people that came to me with problems, sometimes I would ask them if I could pray for them and they would say sure. To me it was just, that’s my belief. That’s who I am, that’s why I’m in that business to help people and I wanted to make that part of our culture and make it open.
Sam: How do you think you would have felt if when you said, can I pray for you, or if when you said, can we start with the prayer?
Rick: Yeah.
Sam: If somebody would’ve said, I’m not comfortable with that. How do you think you would have handled that situation?
Rick: You know, I don’t know if I would of not prayed. I don’t know if I would’ve just asked them if they want to step out while we pray.
Sam: Which might even make them feel more uncomfortable.
Rick: Yeah.
Mary: This brings up a really important point when people are thinking about taking a job, right? I realize that if this happens long after they’ve been there and things change, it’s different, but you need to assess for cultural fit when the person who’s hiring or the person who is going into an organization, and those are questions, difficult questions to ask, perhaps.
Sam: Can you legally ask those questions?
Mary: Well I’m asking as the person who’s interviewing, right? You might want to find out from other people, maybe not in the interview itself, but you might want to talk to people within the organization at some other time to say, I heard that this is a fairly religious organization. There’s a lot of praying or whatever, and you’re going into,.
Sam: You can pray before the interview, welcome to the interview, Can we pray before,.
Vicky: Here comes Jerry, hold on.
Mary: If people don’t like that, then it might be something to pay attention to before you even continue the interview process that you just might not be a fit.
Jerry: Let’s clarify. For purposes of the law, it prohibits discrimination against belief or unbelief, if I’m an atheist and the person says, I’m an atheist, and it also prohibits discrimination on the basis of religious practices such as a religious holiday issue. Time off.
Sam: Okay.
Jerry: So on the religious belief during an interview, you can’t really ask a question, what’s your religion? Yeah. Do you pray?
Sam: Can you ask, would you be uncomfortable in a culture that pray before meetings or is that crossing lines,.
Jerry: Here’s what the problem with the question is, what do you do with the answer?
Vicky: Yes.
Jerry: Because if the answer is yes, you go, okay, we won’t hire you. Guess what? That’s discrimination.
Mary: That’s why I think it’s more important for the person who is being interviewed to be aware of that because coming from the interviewing side and the person who’s being interviewed, it’s your preference. If you want to go into an organization where there’s a lot of praying but you’re not into that, but you can deal with it, fine, but if it’s going to bother you and if you’re going to feel like a hypocrite all the time, that’s probably not the right organization for you.
Vicky: One of the things a prospective new employee may want to do is review the company’s website because often in the verbiage of the website itself, you will glean their spirituality, I guess you might say. If they are affiliated, Jerry, with a religious organization, understanding the culture that is involved. Most people do not realize how important a culture is in their employment relationship, whether it’s religious based or anything else. And most people when they leave an organization, it’s not because of money and benefits, it’s because they don’t feel welcome. It’s not a fit.
Rick: Yeah. The most interesting thing that happened to me, and I’ve had many job interviews in my life, but I was interviewing with a very large religious organization here based in St Louis that is a hospital organization. And in the process of the interview they asked me, are you comfortable with prayer in the workplace? And I said, absolutely. And then they asked me if I would be comfortable leading in prayer at the workplace. That was the first time I’ve ever, ever experienced that.
Vicky: That gets back to, Jerry, could that be in a BFOQ, bonafide occupational qualification? Because it is a religious based organization?
Jerry: The slippery slope of the BFOQ. Truly if it is a position that involves teaching the religious tenants or being a minister, there’s an exception for religious discrimination. But then there’s also case law where at least the employer has argued that the operation of like a community facility, it was in Salt Lake City. It was the Latter Day Saint, the guy basically was the, responsible for the maintenance of the building. And to be a good standing in the latter day saints, you have to dive and there’s something else that you have to do to publicly confirm, and he was say, not a good Mormon. So he was fired and then he filed for religious discrimination and went all the way to the Supreme Court and he lost. So just because I can’t see how someone that’s responsible for facilities maintenance is propagating the faith, but the employer argued that the mission of that center was to advance the religion. So that’s why I called it this slippery slope.
Rick: Well this organization is pretty large. So I would imagine I’m not the only one they ever asked that question to.
Vicky: One of the items, and it might be just really kind of particular to St. Louis, St. Louis being as Catholic as city, that it is even in very what you would call innocuous interviews. The question in St. Louis,
Mary: Where’d you go to high school?
Vicky: Where’d you go to high school? If you went to a parochial school, a Catholic school, guess what? You exposed yourself and you know you’re a Christian, you’re a Catholic. How many times,
Jerry: I’d say yes and no, because that used to be 100% accurate, but particularly in the secondary schools and if they’re people that live in the city and their school options or maybe a parochial school in the public school, there are plenty of people in the Catholic schools who aren’t Catholic.
Sam: Right.
Mary: I went to a Catholic college for a couple of years, but I am no longer practicing Catholic. So someone might assume by seeing that on my LinkedIn profile that I went there, that I’m a practicing Catholic, but not so making those assumptions can be dangerous to.
Sam: Getting back to the workplace, it sounds like, based on what I’m hearing, there’s not a problem if a manager of a department or somebody within a department, if they wanted to lead a group in prayer right there in the office, there’s nothing illegal about that, there are no repurcussions?
Jerry: Is it a voluntary attendance or involuntary? If it’s a voluntary, you know, prayer group on breaks or at lunch or something, we’re going to have a bible discussion or something. That is not a problem. If the employer was picking and choosing however, and said, well, it’s okay if it’s Christian stuff, but if you want to do Islam, no, we’re not going to allow that. That would be a problem because that would be discrimination,
Sam: So you allow it for one, you allow it for any.
Vicky: That’s correct.
Jerry: And so if the wiccans come in and say we want to do our witch thing, okay.
Sam: You would have been okay with that, right Rick?
Rick: Well, you know, now we’re pushing it a little bit.
Vicky: Satan is in our midst, I mean, here we go.
Rick: Yeah. You know, and I was in an organization of Christian business owners, so it was how can you bring the Lord into the work place and there are subtle ways to do it. So I had a book case that had some faith-based books, not just bibles, but faith-based books that were open to anyone to take whenever they wanted to and had some participation in it. I had some bibles in there that you could take home. So it wasn’t like you had to have this, it’s just here, I just want to make this available to anyone that’s interested.
Jerry: Was the exorcist in that piece?
Rick: No, no. And I had a Bible on my desk. Real quick story. I had a guy that, you know, he was just sort of a, let’s live for the weekend kind of guy and he has some real issues in his family. And I asked him if I could pray for him. I prayed for him. He says, what do I do about this? I said, well, you know, in John Chapter Six, here’s what it says. And I said, when you get home, look in your Bible and I think this might help you. He says, I don’t have a bible. And I said, well, now you do. And I gave him that Bible. 13 years later he called me and I thought he was calling me for a reference and he was calling me to tell me that he has accepted the Lord in his life and he was getting baptized. And I just thought, you know, that was just amazing. It was really transformative for him. But for me it just felt like I was able to really impact him and his family’s life in a real positive way, so.
Sam: That was a private conversation between you and an employee?
Rick: Yeah.
Sam: What about other private conversations? Are there any issues if I know that you’re the same religion, can we talk about religion at work?
Jerry: From the legal standpoint, you don’t have to be on the same religion. I can know that you’re not of my faith. And I might want to persuade you to become part of my faith and as long as I don’t cross the line to where you’ve told me stop and I continue, then that’s okay. If you decided to just put up with me no matter what, then that’s okay.
Sam: Can I make fun of you because of your religion?
Jerry: Everything is kind of on a spectrum, so if you get to the case where it’s much like sexual harassment, it often starts out in small increments with a few kind of innocuous comments and eventually it becomes more serious. The more it’s repeated, the more offensive that remarks and if there’s conduct that accompanies that so it can become religious harassment and the employer has the same obligations for religious harassment than it has for sexual harassment.
Sam: I would love to hear our listeners on our Facebook or Linkedin groups your opinions on religion in the workplace, and any stories that you have to share with the rest of us. On that note, do we have an office horror story having to do with religion in the workplace?
Rick: Oh, no. This is more sexual harassment than it was in a religious environment.
Sam: Oh, okay.
Rick: So I’ll save that for our discussion when we have at about sexual harassment in the workplace.
Vicky: That does kind of bridge some of the things that are there. That teachings in some, I would say Islam with regard to men and women in their interactions with regard to the workplace and how it can be example, I could not shake the hand of someone I was working for because they were male and I was a female and I had to remember and he was nice about it, but it was very awkward. Normally I put my hand out to shake hands.
Sam: I’ve had that happen before. It didn’t even occur to me, but it was somebody I was networking with and I reached out to shake his hand and he said, no I can’t.
Vicky: I wasn’t offended. I realized that his faith.
Rick: Well my wife was in the church organization and she was really the assistant to the pastor and you know, that’s what a great job for her. You know, she loves that. She loves being able to assist and contribute to the congregation. And when she was in a setting where it was her and the pastor in a room alone. So the pastor would tell her how attractive she was. My wife didn’t have a problem until he said to her, I bet you’re more attractive with your clothes off.
Mary: Oh my.
Rick: This is a pastor and this is somebody that shouldn’t be, it should be, you know, God honoring. So she came home from work was kind of not the same. I go, what’s wrong? And of course she said nothing. Nothing. Which then I know right away something’s wrong. Right? So long story short, but it turned out that he had gone through about five different assistants in about a year and a half, and the church organization was claiming he never would have done that and then started to kind of harass her a little bit in that situation. So it was really,.
Sam: I take it she ended up leaving?
Rick: Yeah. I mean she couldn’t go back there and work in that environment and it’s just crazy. So she had to leave employment. Right. So that was really unbelievable.
Christine: Thanks for listening to SuperManager by CN video production. Visit our website at cn-video.com for additional episodes and lots of SuperManager resources, or give us a call at 314 VIDEO ME.