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Reasonable Accommodation & Religion: The law requires an employer to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious beliefs or practices, unless doing so would cause difficulty or expense for the employer. This means an employer may have to make reasonable adjustments at work that will allow the employee to practice his or her religion, such as allowing an employee to voluntarily swap shifts with a co- worker.

The laws surrounding the way a company should handle religious practices is defined by the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). The EEOC (n.d.) states, “The law forbids discrimination when it comes to any aspect of employment,

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against employees based on their religion. In fact, the law “requires employers to reasonably accommodate an employee when that employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs, practices, or observance conflict with a work requirement unless the accommodation would cause an undue hardship to the employer” (Fowler-Hermes & Gierbolini, 2014, p. 34).

Religion in the workplace can introduce some of the most challenging concerns employers have to tackle. Solving these issues involves an understanding of the law as well as attempting to balance the business 's needs with an employee 's desire to practice his or her religion. One of the most controversial conflicts when dealing with religion in the workplace is between an employee 's desire to take time off to acknowledge religious days or holidays and the potential reduction in productivity and profitability.

Since our country has a great diversity, employers may decide to hire their employees from a great variety of countries and different religious backgrounds. In an ideal work environment, the religious beliefs of a given employee, or the employer, do not have a conflict. Each individual is free to believe as he or she chooses and, as the work gets done right, neither of them will encounter difficulty with religion. However, in the real world, a good bit of issues can arise to create problems. An employee and employer may discuss, or even argue over, religious principles. What is more, religion is not always simply a matter of belief. The faithful practice their religion through various actions – styles of dres, manner of keeping or wearing one’s hair, follow certain diets, trying to recruit others to their faith, fasting, praying, avoiding certain language or behavior, and observing certain religious holidays.

In a Ted Talks video given by Kathy Lund Dean, she goes on to talk about discrimination on religion, particularly in the work place. Religious discrimination rates have gone up significantly since the attack on the Twin Towers. With the stereotype of all Muslims are terrorists, people have been more intolerant of people that belong to the Islamic faith (Dean). Most of the time these actions of intolerance get swept under the rug, they get covered up and never really talked about or fixed. That is exactly what happens to these occurrences. They are reported but never resolved. They are known about, but never talked about. They are occurring every day, but nothing gets done about it. These daily incidences inhibit the reaching of the American Dream. If you get harassed and tormented and teased at your job constantly, are you really going to stay? It can prevent career growth based on ridicule and that is a problem in our society. In an article titled Your Faith May Cost You Your Next Job, written by Bradley Wright, his colleague, Michael Wallace, and him organized an experiment. They created four résumés. Two men and two women. After they created the four different résumés they added names with no religious or ethnicity background. Then they made 9,600 copies of the original four. Then they put various religions on it: control group (no listed religion), Pagan, Jewish, Evangelical Christian, Catholic, Wallonian,

The topic of minorities in the workforce and how the struggle to accomplish equal treatment in today’s workforce is nothing new to our society. For centuries we have been concerned that by bringing together our different backgrounds, skills, and experiences, as well as the many businesses of this great

Religion should be allowed in the workplace to an extent. If the vast majority of people in a workplace belonged to a certain religious group utilitarian would allow religion in the workplace. Since it is what the greatest amount of what people want it would be benefiting the greater good. This would be the simplest choice for the utilitarian view point. A utilitarian would also feel obligated to please those people who are the minority in this situation. This is why religion in the workplace would be allowed to a certain extent. A utilitarian would allow religious practices such as prayer to go on in the workplace as long as they didn’t interfere with the work that needs to be done. To take away the practice of a workers religion would be consider morally wrong, so allowing religious practices as long as it doesn’t take away from work would be beneficial to the greater good. I also believe a utilitarian boss would support religion because studies have shown that people with religious beliefs have a higher decision making skills. Thus pleasing those who would rather leave religion out of work and who would like to incorporate things such as prayer. The integration of faith and work has had positive implications at the personal level, as well as for corporate ethics and the broader economic sphere. The study of religion has often investigated beliefs, rituals, and practices, and how they have manifested in various spheres of life (Fry, 2014).

I feel employment discrimination concerns can be addressed quite simply in the religious workplace by implementing an organizational policy addressing ministerial exceptions and first amendment rights in relation to respecting an establishment of religion with state. Through ongoing training with staff covering religious rights in the workplace I would give detail and clear guidance on how to notify individuals and supervisor to make a discrimination complaint without retaliation.

There are careers in this world in which people may be subjected to many different religions. I have been in the United States Air Force for seven years and have experienced religious differences on a daily basis. The Air Force makes it mandatory to receive training on equal opportunity and treating people with respect no matter what faith they may practice. Some of the training consists of computer based training and also face to face training on how to adapt to religious and cultural differences when representing the United States Air Force. In this career field you encounter differences in faith with your co-workers, supervisors and customers. You also have the possibility of being deployed to numerous countries around the world.

Discrimination has been seen throughout history. Discrimination is the treatment of an individual or group based on their perceived appearance. Religious discrimination is when someone treats someone else differently because of what they do or do not believe. The following religions make up the United States of America: Protestant 54%, Catholic 24%, None 17%, Other 3% and Jewish 2%. ("Adding Personal Beliefs in Marketing Modeling- Part 1: Religion." Innovation and Marketing Analytics and Data. Analytics IQ Inc., n.d. Web. 3 Mar. 2015.) Workers should not be hired or fired based on their religious wear or values.

Due to being discriminated some jobs will not hire people because of their religion. In my opinion this is a real problem, you cannot judge a person based on their religion. Many people of different religions have fled from places that discriminate them only to find more people judging them where they go next. I have experienced this a couple of

“In other cases, employers have had to take action because of the complaints by workers that employees were aggressively “pushing” their religious views at work, thus creating a hostile environment” (Mathis et. al., 2014, p. 3-8a).

Although many organizations forbid religious express, it is almost impossible to stop an employee from thinking about their religious commitments (Hick, 2003). Understanding how individuals are influenced by their religion and how that affects the work environment is vital for leaders to avoid conflict within the workplace. In higher education, practicing religious pluralism at work is essential because of the diverse groups of people that are involved in the higher education workforce.

The existence of a sincere religious belief or practice that conflicts with an employment requirement