Communicating Religious Accommodation Policies to the Internal Customer: How Important to Retention and Litigation?

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Conference Track

Marketing Management/ Strategy/ Branding

Publication Date

2012

Abstract

Today’s workforce is becoming more diversified in ethnicity, culture, language, and religion. Religion plays an important role in the values people hold, resulting in companies juggling the desire of employees for religious expression and accommodation with the desire of the employer to have a discrimination-free workplace. Companies develop and disseminate discrimination and harassment policies to their internal customers, assuming they are protecting their employees’ religious beliefs and the companies’ welfare from employee litigation and complaints. We investigated the communication and awareness of religious accommodation policies and the relationship to both employee retention and potential litigation. A major finding of our study is that 75% either reported no policy or they were unaware of a religious accommodation policy and 40% reported no policy or that they were not aware of a religious harassment policy. Fifty-seven percent of our respondents reported they would consider new employment if they had problems with their religion at work. Fifty percent reported they would seek legal remedies if they experienced religious discrimination at work. Companies need to be aware of the critical nature of communicating with their internal customers (employees) religious accommodation and discrimination policies. To not do so can result in both litigation and loss of employees.

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Digital Commons@Georgia Southern License

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