Most companies find the holidays difficult to navigate simply because of the religious diversity among us. In the workplace, Christmas day has long been a holiday that has come to be more a representative day for holiday observance than its religious meaning. While some companies with founders that have strong religious beliefs may close and observe other religious holidays, it is a legal minefield.
Now we have a school district in Fort Worth TX that appears to be attempting to teach religious political correctness (PC) to students. In their effort to separate church and school, they are prohibiting the exchange of religion-based cards and greetings and monitoring decorations to ensure there are no religious overtones. However, the students may exchange gifts and religion-based cards during lunch periods and before/after school. Sound like your office environment?
Needless to say, parents are rolling their eyes and complaining. However, do they really have anything to complain about? In case you haven’t noticed, this is the type of environment many companies are striving to achieve to prevent lawsuits regarding religious freedom.
While a company is free to declare which, if any, days it plans to close operations within the year, you need to be prepared to respond to employees who don’t observe Christmas and would like to trade it for the religious holiday of their choice. As you might have guessed, it’s not an even swap because you can’t have, or don’t want, them working when your business is closed. The uneven swap is because the most you can usually offer is an unpaid day off. If you offer them a different paid day off, are you discriminating against those that didn’t ask by allowing an additional paid day?
I’m curious to hear from you… is this an issue in your company? If so, how are you handling it?
