Religious Diversity

There are two levels to consider when we look at diversity in business. The first is the macro level, which deals with the relationships between countries doing business. Macro diversity management focuses on the cultural differences among different countries, because for successful business to be conducted, countries must understand each other’s political, religious, and cultural differences. This paper, however, focuses on the other level of diversity, the micro level, and will discuss the issue of religious diversity in companies with individualistic styles of management. The companies I shall cite as examples of different responses to religious diversity in the workplace are the Central Intelligence Agency of the U.S. government, and AgeCare, a Calgary based company with five facilities in Western Canada. The CIA is a good example of what not to do regarding diversity, and AgeCare a good model for doing it right.

Ethnic and therefore religious diversity is a fact of Canadian and American life. Statistics show that more the 13 million immigrants have left their home countries in the past 100 years to start a new life in Canada, “making Canada one of the world’s most ethnically diverse countries.” 1

An individualistic management style is one that promotes individualism and one where “managers allow employees to look after their own work to a high degree:" In a business that wants to promote individualism, managers allow freedom to explore new ways of completing basic procedures or projects. Unless a worker presents a threat or otherwise is not performing up to the company's standards, she enjoys a high privacy level. Everyone gets a chance to voice an opinion. Management also responds to requests for personal time.2 Diversity management in individualistic workplaces is all about making all of the parts fit, resulting in a cohesive working unit. The challenge which confronts American and Canadian companies is that North American workplaces draw on a workforce composed of people from nearly every country in the world, and so face a hugely diverse workforce. A broad definition of diversity ranges from personality and work style to all of the visible dimensions of diversity such as race, age, ethnicity or gender, to secondary management and union, functional level and classification or proximity/distance to headquarters3

In a multi-ethnic country like Canada, this means that when it comes to religious diversity, it is not simply a matter of allowing days off for religious holidays. Multi-ethnicity means multi-religious affiliation, which in turn means that multicultural workforces must develop a very wide range of policies to accommodate religious diversity. The Tannenbaum Center’s “Religious Diversity Checklist” gives a thorough description of the areas involved in accommodating religious diversity, organizing them under five headings. The checklist employs a series of questions for employers to ask themselves. The first is whether their diversity policies include policies for religious diversity, and whether these policies are communicated clearly to employees. The list goes on to address such issues as time off for holidays, allowances for ways of dress dictated by religious affiliation, dietary arrangements in snack rooms or cafeterias to care to different diets such as “kosher, halal, vegetarian, etcetera.” It also questions whether or not on-site religious affiliate groups are permitted, what accommodations are made for office space (e.g. can employees decorate office space with religious decorations?) and whether or not it accommodates religious practices such as prayer or meditation on site.4

Obviously, the challenge for companies which have large multi-ethnic and multi-religious populations is a huge one. It costs a lot of money, time and effort to develop policies of accommodation when there may be people from thirty or forty different countries on your workforce. But not drawing up the policies will likely be more challenging and, in the long run, much more expensive. Studies show that lack of such policies leads to higher levels of job dissatisfaction, poor performance, and turnover.5

Relgious diversity can itself be a key to business success. Silberzahn and Jones write about the difficulty large companies have in recognizing and successfully meeting change, and argue that “ a genuine understanding of why large organizations get caught out by events can only come through looking at their decision-making in their individual cultural settings."6 [My italics] Silberzahn’s and Jones’s worst-case scenario is the CIA. They point out how often the CIA has failed in its mission to provide vital information to the government, citing among others their failure to anticipate the fall of the Soviet Union and the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in 2001. Remarking that the CIA has long had a hard time “getting inside the heads of their opponents,” they argue that: One reason for this is the homogeneity of its personnel, in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, class, and culture. For most of the agency’s existence, the majority of its agents and analysts have been a relatively tight group of Caucasian, protestant, iberal-arts-educated American males. Very few have spoken foreign languages, and fewer still have traveled abroad. Tellingly, like many of its business counterparts, the CIA has been repeatedly been taken to court for racial and gender discrimination.7

In other words, if the CIA had a wider representation of different ethnicities and religions, they would have been more able to recognize and understand the information they were gathering. In this case, lack of diversity not only cost money, it also cost lives. Especially in the case of 9/11, a greater sensitivity to nuances of Islamic beliefs and concerns might have helped prevent the attack.

Another way in which lack of diversity can harm a company is described in a publication by the Alberta Government Department of Employment and Immigration.8 The Alberta labour force is characterized by shortage of workers and high turnover. Their solution to the problem is simple and straightforward: “Recruit employees from groups historically under-represented in Alberta’s labour force: Aboriginal people, new immigrants, persons with disabilities, and older workers."9 To keep these workers, diversity policies that pay special attention to religious diversity are obviously of great importance for immigrants, and also to Aboriginals, because indigenous people are rediscovering their traditional cultural and religious practices. The publication stressed that inclusive workforces must be “respectful, stable, productive, innovative, energized."10

AgeCare, the Calgary-based company that provides care for the elderly, stresses keeping their clients in the same facility even if their mental and physical capacities diminish. The Calgary facility has roughly 300 employees, of about whom 60% are foreign-born. An advantage of this is that the workforce’s diversity provides a good match for the diversity of the residents, and increases the level of comfort of them. Next to language, religious diversity is the biggest contributor to this. Interestingly, however, the company has no formal diversity program. Instead, they have found innovative ways to celebrate ethnic and religious diversity so as to create a strong atmosphere of inclusiveness. For example, they serve elegant dinners to celebrate various religiously significant occasions, and they also do not restrict employees to statutory or even the major traditional holidays, but encourage them take time off on days that are of cultural and religious significance to the them. An unexpected side benefit is that the practice has made staff scheduling easier.11 There is, however, another aspect of Canadian and American workplaces that requires looking at a different dimension of religious diversity, and that is intolerance for and harassment of some employees by others. A survey report written for the Society for Human Resource Management notes an increase in religious harassment charges in American companies, in part because traditional work culture was secular, and the growth of ethnic and religious diversity in the workplace can be threatening to some people. For any religious diversity policy to work, it has to take this into account, and both protect workers from discrimination and educate the discrimination. The report notes that workplaces that provide religious accommodation for their workers have the highest rates of employee moral and retention.12

One final matter that needs to be stressed when it comes to managing a diversity of religions is that a happy medium between the needs of the company and the wishes of its employees has to be found. What this means is that both parties need be willing to compromise. Managers cannot be expected to conform to all the practices a religion may require of his/her employees, especially if it will affect the company’s productivity. For example, in certain industrial situations, religious rules about dress may conflict with safety requirements. But within these limits, managers and employees both need to acknowledge and respect people with a wide variety of religious beliefs and practices.

NOTES

1. Nicola Pless, and Thomas Maak, " Building an Inclusive Houston Chronicle http Diversity Culture-Principles, Processes and Practice," Journal of Business Ethics, 54, no. 2 (2004): 129-147,

2.Wanda Thibodeaux, "Individualism in the Workplace," http://smallbusiness.chron.com/individualism-workplace-13486.html, para.3

3. "Diversity Definitions," Work and Family Researchers Network, https://workfamily.sas.upenn.edu/glossary/d/diversity-definitions, para.1

4.Simon Webley, Religious Practices in the Workplace, Institute of Business Ethics, 2011, 22-23

5. Mercy Gacheri Munjuri,"Workforce Diversity Management and Employee Performance in The Banking Sector in Kenya." 1 DBA Africa Management Review, 2012, Vol 3 No 1, 1-21

6. Philippe Silberzahn, and Milo Jones, "Lack of Diversity Paralyzed the CIA. It Can Cripple Your Organization, Too," Guest Post, Forbes Magazine, http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/04/26/, 1 7. Ibid., 2

8. "Employing a Diverse Workforce: Making it Work," Publication, #672126, Department of Labour and Immigration, Government of Alberta, 6

9. Ibid., 6

10. Ibid., 9

11. Ibid., 39

12. "Religion and Corporate Culture: Accommodating Religious Diversity in the Workplace," http://www.diversityinc.com/medialib/uploads/2011/12/08-0625ReligionSR_Final_LowRez.pdf, 20