The Screen Saver

In “The Screen Saver,” the theme of religion in the workplace is addressed. The following document will answer five questions: 1) Who is affected? 2) What are the likely consequences? 3) Are there any rights or duties at stake? 4) What principles are involved? and, 5) What are the implications for the characters? Lastly, the case will be examined through the lens of an HR practitioner; specifically, how to best resolve the given situation will be discussed.

1) Who is affected?
Ed Harrison, his staff—specifically John Blank, the Jewish employees and the Christian employees particularly, and the HR person or department.

As the owner of the agency, Ed Harrison is affected. Due to the small size of the firm, he will ultimately be involved in the incident between Blank and the born-again Christian. If the company had been bigger, Harrison may not have heard about this issue if it was resolved through HR or another party.
John Blank is clearly affected as he is offended by the religious screen saver of another employee. He claims that the other Jewish employees are also offended—though a first hand account from them is not provided.
Consequently, Blank has spoken with the born-again Christian—and has not yet resolved the matter. Thus, this employee is now too affected. This can potentially lead to a clash between the religions

2) What are the likely consequences?
Though a discussion of how HR should handle this scenario will be followed shortly, consequences that I can talk about now are any of those actions that will lead to resolvment. Not all people can always be happy. In this scenario, the best thing to do is whatever causes the least bit of disruption to the workflow. Again due to the small nature, and lack of privacy at the firm, this issue is one that may need to gt fixed fast—which can lead to hasty solutions that will not actually get rid of all the underlying problems.

3) Are there any rights or duties at stake?
Under Title VII, religion is a protected class, and employers must ensure that no oactions will lead to creating a hostile work environment. However, we are not given information about the company’s religious expression policies, or they simply may not have one. Under the constitution freedom of speech is also guaranteed. However, the difference comes when you are at work. The company should have some police about this shit.

4) What principles are involved?
Employee well-being, productivity, engagement, equality are all involved. Particularly, if Blank claims he is offended—others can claim they’re offended by other things.

5) Implications for each character?
The resolution leads to Blank being satisfied or by born-again, or both being satisfied or at least over it. Those are the most realistic. Ed may realize he needs a more robust policy or handbook (or just one in general) that will allow him to not be as involved and rather have HR be more responsible for mediating such events in the future. Harrison might also consider making the cubicles more private. He may decide to move the born-again into a space that is less visible so that he can continue to have his screen saver.

What should HR do?

Some of this shit was discussed while answering the above questions. However, HR should first check their company manual or handbook and see if there is anything about religion or religious expression in there, and then consult Harrison about that. Next, HR can talk to born-again and tell him that the company believes that thought every one can have their beliefs, that on work things, no personal