Article Review - We Don’t Do God - Managing Religious Expression in the Workplace

Article Critical Review

We don’t do God’ (but maybe we should?)

 Managing religious expression in the workplace

By: Dr. Andrew Hambler

Reem Alturki

213520182

Religious expression in the workplace is a controversial subject around workplaces. Many employers have different views and experiences about religious expression, and those experiences are different based on many factors such as culture, work environment, or even location. In addition, there have been many discussions and articles about this matter.

One of these articles is the article by Dr. Andrew Hambler, We don’t do God’ (but maybe we should?): managing religious expression in the workplace. In his paper, Dr. Hambler talked about the legal constraints on managers’ freedom of action; the extent to which they enjoy a measure of discretion in their treatment of individual religious expression; and the issues they may wish to consider before using that discretion. His paper focused on four sections about religious expression in the workplace: dress/personal appearance, working time, conscientious objection and religious speech.

There are many different realigns, cultures, and traditions around the world, and nowadays we could see at least two different beliefs in one workplace. This is why it is important to accommodate employees when it comes to express their beliefs. However, the level of accommodation is hard to define.

 In his first section, Dr. Hambler talked about religious expression in terms of dress/personal appearance. As we know, some religions require certain dress for the people who follow them. Regarding to this issue, Dr. Hambler said organizations must not implement a policy that requires their employees to uncover their head because this “would impose a substantial burden on some Sikh men and some Muslim women”.

He gave two examples where some employees faced difficulties with their employers about the way they dress. In one incident, a female employee unsuccessfully claimed she had suffered discrimination when her employer refused permission to wear a burqa. The reason behind this restriction is because of the nature of her job demanded, that the children should be able to see her mouth and facial movements.

The second example is when an employee at British Airway who was not allowed to wear jewelry including a small cross which had religious significance for her. In this incident, the employer did not allow her to wear the jewelry with the cross because they want “to display a consistent image to the public”. Because of this reason, The European Court found that the employer’s justification (corporate image) was not ‘weighty’ enough when compared to Ewido's sense of religious obligation.

As a result, I agree with Dr. Hambler that managers should be flexible regarding to dress policy based on circumstances, and the dictions should be on the safety, health, or operational needs.

Here some examples support the previous point of view(1):

• An employer requires long, loose hair to be tied back to avoid danger from machinery in an industrial plant.
• Staff working in a kitchen must tie their hair back and cover it for hygiene reasons.
• An employer providing healthcare services stops staff wearing long sleeves or jewelry to reduce the transmission of infection from one patient to another.
• Staff working in a clothing company’s stores are required to wear clothes made by the company itself to show customers what the clothing looks like when worn.

The second point that Dr. Hambler discussed is the religious expression when it comes to working time. He said “Organizations are not obliged to action requests for time off for religious activities away from the workplace, if these interfere with operational need, which might include difficulties in reassigning duties to other staff”. He gave an example of a Christian care home worker who does not want to work on Sunday because she believes it is wrong to work on Sundays. Due to the disruption of staff- scheduling and because of the care of children, the Court of Appeal ruled that accommodating her was overly costly.

In this section, I believe that Dr. Hambler did not have enough supports for his point of view. I believe accommodating working time because of religious beliefs is important, and I believe also, that good managers can handle this matter very easily when ask their employees to provide them with the time that they need to take off because of religious beliefs.  In addition, managers should allow their employees frequently to talk to them anytime if they need someone to cover for them.

According to ACAS.Org.UK (2), it said the regulations do not say that employers must provide time and facilities for religious or belief observance in the workplace. However, employers should consider whether their policies, rules and procedures indirectly discriminate against staff of particular religions or beliefs and if so whether reasonable changes might be made (2). Many religions or beliefs have special festival or spiritual observance days. A worker may request holiday in order to celebrate festivals or attend ceremonies. An employer should sympathetically consider such a request where it is reasonable and practical for the employee to be away from work, and they have sufficient holiday entitlement (2).