Essay on Accommodating Religion in the Workplace

Maya was justifiably upset at the offensive behavior of the unintroduced guest. Since a chair was not provided for him on the stage, it would appear he was not invited to sit on the stage during Mr. Donleavy’s speech. It was exceptionally impolite for him to take the principal’s seat and showed a lack consideration for the principal and the audience.

When Maya has friends over she tries to keep them sheltered from that part of her life, because she doesnt want them to know about the kind of culture she belongs to. When you look out into the world many people relate to Maya, they all want to hide the kind of culture they grew up in and the kind of lifestyle they live in. These people will hide who they are on a day to day basis because of their culture. These people try to avoid the question “whats that” or “why is that hung up and what does it mean” or they just want to avoid being bullied because of

When Maya returns to Stamps after spending time with her mother, she endures the shame of having been sexually abused by Mr. Freeman, her mother’s boyfriend. Maya stops speaking to everyone except her brother, Bailey. Her real mother accepts her silence at first as trauma, but she later gets angry at Maya’s “disrespectful behavior”. Much to Maya’s relief, she is sent back to live with Momma in Stamps along with her

An example of Maya facing racism is during her eighth grade graduation. Maya was so excited to graduate. The school she attended enrolled both whites and blacks. First of all during the assembly the blacks had to recite their own national anthem titled “ The Negro National Anthem”. The principal gave a speech the the students and instead of treating the kids equal, he proudly stated the new achievements the whites were going to have, and

Namely, losing her confidence when her experiment begins to fall apart. It starts to fall apart when her crush doesn’t accept her invitation to her farewell party and then when she finds out everyone’s going to Allison’s birthday party, a girl in her choir, instead. It gets worse when she messes up her solo at the choir concert and everyone makes fun of her. Maya stops talking to others and goes back to her old self. As proof of this, “Why did I believe I was anything but an inside joke?...I’m not special, I’m just a crazy girl in Grandma shoes. I don’t have balls at all...All my confidence and inner strength-how do I find it again?” (227-228).This reflects how Maya feels about herself. Maya brings herself down by letting everyone else get to her. She cancels her party and decides to give up on her experiment because she feels so bad about herself. Maya’s popularity disapears and even her friends have abondened her. Furthermore, Maya realizes that she was closest to popularity when “I was talking to people. It was when I opened up my introverted circle and allowed everyone I met in. It was when I included everyone” (230). As a result of this realization, Maya understands the true meaning of popularity. It was more then looks . It’s more than the right clothes, hair or what you owned, it was who you are and how you treat others. After determining this, Maya decides to invite anyone who doesn’t have a date to prom to go with her. Instead of excluding people like she did for her farewell party, she includes everyone. Maya beomces confident and positive again. By putting the past behind her, Maya can move forward and continue her experiment. In the end, Maya learns that to be confident, she has to let go, find that light inside of her and show it to the

The United States is one of the most culturally and religiously diverse countries in the world. The founding fathers of the United States wanted to ensure that its people would have the ability to practice their religion with no threat of persecution. In order to accomplish the goal of religious freedom and continue to ensure that all people of any religion would be free to practice their religion, the United States passed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits an employer from discriminating based on the religious views of its employees. As the citizens of the United States spend a large amount of time in their places of employment, religious practices that these employees feel are necessary for the true observance of their religion must be accommodated by the employers. This law contends that in cases where the accommodation of religious practices of its employees does not create undue hardships, an employer must make reasonable accommodations for employees to practices the beliefs of their religion. As the demographics of the United States continues to change with more religiously diverse people immigrating to the country, employers are coming under more pressure to ensure they are taking all possible precautions to accommodate the religious practices of its employees. These precautions are important as the once an employee has established a bona fide complaint of religious discrimination, the burden of proof then falls on the employer to prove they

time off from work to practice their faith and celebrate religious holidays. Employers may face

Cintas Corporation is a multi-national publicly traded organization (CTAS) based in Cincinnati, OH. Cintas employs approximately 30,000 employees, who are called partners, at local locations spread mainly throughout North America (Cintas, 2016). Cintas employees a diverse workforce, representing cultures and religions from all over the world. Cintas is a company respected for its management systems and execution of policies and procedures. Cintas will continue to grow, and as a result employ more people. With a growing employee base, religion will continue to grow as a political power in the company’s workplace as well (Adams, 2012). As such, it is critical Cintas has a clearly defined policy regarding religious holiday leave that complies with all Federal and State employment laws.

Melinda talks about her poster Maya,” Maya taps me on the shoulder. I’m not listening. I know I know I don’t want to hear it. I need to do something about Rachel, something for her. Maya tells me without saying anything.” Even though Melinda says she isn’t listening she obviously does.

Freedom of religion has been a right guaranteed to individuals in society. However, it is ultimately just an idea put in place that is disregarded as something insignificant. The workplaces of many people choose to deny employees the right to express their religion freely, for fear it may leave a bad image for the company. It is apparent that freedom of religion is not a strong right as many people may have originally thought it was. The limits of this right have been tested for decades and continue to be an issue for people today. Freedom of religion may go on to exist as a right in society, but when investigating deeper into this privilege, it is evident that it is merely an idea taken for granted.

Attracting and retaining the best talent requires an organization’s dedication to, responsibility for and accountability towards a healthy and diverse work force. Due to the international focus, cultural elements and global mission of the organization, Peace Mantle’s executive team is committed not only to attracting and retaining a talented and diverse team of individuals offering an invaluable set of experiences, perspectives and backgrounds, but to enhancing this collaborative effort by creating a culture of ease, respect and appreciation. In the spirit of Peace Mantle’s corporate commitment to best practices in the area of diversity and inclusion, and the desire of its executive officers, supervisors and managers to implement these practices in order to experience the full value of an intelligent and diverse team, this policy brief presents the background, research and recommendations on religious holiday leave.

Cultural differences in the workplace can sometimes become a challenge in the work environment. In order to facilitate these differences, there must be some form of cultural awareness. Cultural awareness can help employees face the challenge of responding to individuals with different religions in the workplace, expose religious practices, and eliminate stereotyping in the workplace. Awareness of religions, and the beliefs associated with different religions, can be accomplished in many ways, such as training courses, workshops or company handouts (Thomas Kochan, 2003, p. 4). Companies must embrace multiculturalism and diversity.

suggest that there is an obvious solution that is fair. When it comes to fairness, I think it is fair

Religion in the workplace can bring up some of the most difficult issues employers have to face. Resolving these issues requires understanding the law and balancing the business's needs with an employee's desire to practice his or her religion. One of the most contentious conflicts is between an employee's desire to take time off and the potential reduction in productivity and profitability. In ruling on Title VII religion cases, the courts have held that employers aren't required to accommodate employees' religious activities when it involves increased financial costs, transferring supervisory personnel or employees from other departments resulting in inefficiency, or discriminating against other employees or violating seniority systems. Accommodations that don't constitute undue hardship to the employer include voluntary substitutions or employee "swaps," flexible work schedules, floating or optional holidays, staggered work hours, and allowing employees to make up lost time. Transfers and job changes also are options if they don't cause reduced efficiency or

Because Sonia’s co-workers are gossiping and raising concern, and as a consequence Sonia’s work performance is falling, management needs to personally address Sonia and discuss the comments that are being made. Another steps that management should take in this situation is to encourage a culture that is more accepting and understanding of religious diversity. It seems as if the culture of this organization does not understand the importance of recognizing and accepting religious diversity and management could address this through the creation of religious affinity groups. This would offer an effective strategy to help employees better understand the existence of religious diversity and the importance of respecting one another’s beliefs.