Religious diversity in the workplace

What are the benefits of religious diversity?

Globalised workforce

Many businesses are now operating on an international scale. This could mean operating with a global workforce with multiple offices across the globe or recruiting staff globally to work in our businesses in the UK. We need to be aware of different customs and practices to support others to encourage retention, engagement and overall customer experience.

Creates a culture of openness

If we can speak about who we are, celebrate with others and feel like we can bring our full selves to work, we encourage a culture of openness and inclusivity. Those people with strong beliefs will seek out organisations that align with their values.

Supports employee wellbeing

There has been an increased importance placed on supporting employee mental health and wellbeing, and it is an inclusion priority for 2024. Religion in times of chaos and difficulties can be a source of comfort and support employee wellbeing. If you provide a space for reflection or to practice your faith, such as a multi-faith room, this is a great way to show you understand and meet employees needs.

It’s the right thing to do

Religion and faith is a way of living and supporting people to practice this is the right thing to do – it supports them to bring their whole self to work and supports your organisation to embed its inclusive culture.

Ways to incorporate religious diversity into the workplace

• Allow leave for religious holidays that does not come out of employees annual leave allowance. Asking those people who don’t follow a Christian calendar to use leave is a disadvantage. A simple way of doing this is allowing the Christmas shut down to be optional or provide a number of religious holidays that people can tap into use if needed. Flexible working policies can also accommodate those communities which require praying during the day such as Islam.
• Provide a space for reflection in the form of a multi-faith room so that people can practice their faith. Download the Multi-faith room factsheet with our Inclusive Employers membership to learn more.
• Develop interfaith networks, or for smaller organisations develop links with interfaith networks. This can help support and build psychological safety for more difficult discussions if a good relationship exists before a crisis.
• Ensure that Equality Impact Assessments are inclusive of all faiths. Consultation should be carried out with an inter faith group.
• Update documentation, language and spaces to be more inclusive from various backgrounds.
• Use the links with interfaith networks to develop new ways of celebrating different faiths.
• Understand your employee and customer body and collect data to highlight which faiths are represented in the organisation.
• Understand how current affairs can cause issues in the workplace and don’t delay the opportunity to have the difficult conversations. Once too much time has passed this can cause a disconnect.

My personal perspective on religion in the workplace

Over time in my career, religion is not something that has been discussed in work. Either because my faith was assumed based on the colour of my skin or because people were too nervous to have the discussion.

Overall, to me, faith is a very personal thing and I do keep my faith to myself unless there is a need, for example when I have wanted time off for celebrations or when people have passed. In both of these instances, I have always had to explain our culture, faith and expectations and how things differ. Only once in my life have I had the luxury of having a line manager who automatically understood and asked no questions, which was very helpful at what was a very stressful time.

Things that would have helped is if those conversations or understanding were there before so there wasn’t a need to explain in a stressful time. Reverse mentoring has given me the space to discuss this and proved supportive and beneficial.

Faith can be personal, but a basic understanding is important and taking responsibility for your own learning is essential.

How can Inclusive Employers support you with religious diversity

• If you are a member, please use your monthly membership account manager meetings to explore ways of celebrating religious diversity.
• If you are not yet a member we invite you to find out more about how membership can benefit your inclusion and diversity goals.
• We can provide support via specialist training with lived experience.
• Consultation, review or audits of policies and processes.

Get in touch via the form below to discuss how we can support to you to understand and embed religious diversity in your workplace.