Religious Accomodations Pre-Employment

jmejia

Dear HR Professionals out there,

My HR department has a situation where an appplicant had inquired about a position within our organization. We are a manufacturing facility who has variable shifts, hours, and operates Mondays thru Saturdays, and sometimes Sundays. The applicant indicated that they are not able to work on Saturdays or Sundays due to religious restrictions. I know that if working on Saturdays or even Sundays is a job requirement (which in our organization's specific case, it is), I can ask the candidate if they are able to work on Saturday or Sunday since it is a requirement of the position even though they may have a religous restriction to not work on Sat. or Sun. without illegally inquiring about their religious preferences when regarding employment.

What suggestions do any of you have for me in how to appropriately and legally respond to this applicant without violating and EEO federal and state employment laws? Any feedback would be appreciated! Thanks and have a great weekend

HR Manager

Don D

Your safest approach is to describe the job, its elements and requirements, including stating the requirements that the incumbents in those positions be available for Saturday and Sunday rotation. I assume you require that of all the incumbents. In that case, you should have no problem with defending that to the EEOC. It would not be a reasonable accommodation to exempt someone from that requirement. That would be UNreasonable. If, however, you have people clammoring for the Saturday assignments and running footraces against each other to get to work Sundays, you might conclude that it would be real easy to exempt this one since it will cause you no hardship or scheduling anguish at all.

Gillian

If your decision point is based upon whether or not they can work on their religious day then you have made a decision based upon religion. Your obligation is to accomodate to a religious preference unless you can do so without undue hardship and you need to go through that process. Just saying everyone works on that day is not sufficient. If you describe the job and working hours and an applicant turns it down without saying anything about the religion issue then you don't have a problem. That is not the issue here, the line has already been crossed.

Don D

I assume you laid it out and asked her if she can perform the job given those requirements. Then the discussion began involving religion, only because she mentioned it. If she said "I'll take it but can't work any weekend days," tell her you are not willing to accommodate that. I assume you would also not hire somebody who told you, "I can't work weekends because my toes hurt on those days". If you require the rotation, I would not hire her whatever her reason is. The EEOCs requirement that we consider accommodating religious practices, is not a mandate that you accommodate them regardless. You must be prepared to successfully demonstrate to them what a hardship and business problem it would place on the company to do so. Again, in my opinion, to accommodate that absolute inflexibility is not reasonable. If she said I'd like to be off about every 4th Sunday to attend services, that might be reasonable. Run it by your attorney first.

jimlegal

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-24-03 AT 12:59PM (CST)[/font][p]Is accomodation necessary? If you conduct your Pre-Employment hiring practices without considering religion, why worry. By your actions be sure you do not discriminate between applicants. I would give the position requirements as posted or maintained in our job description and go on with life!!!

David Nagle VA

Assuming that your company is covered by Title VII, you cannot discriminate on the basis of religion. Title VII defines religion to include "all aspects of religious observances and practices, as well as belief, unless an employer demonstrates that he is unable to reasonably accommodate an employee's or prospective employee's religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer's business." 42 USC Section 2000e(j).

It is NOT sufficient to merely announce requirements and demand that the applicant/employee meet them. Similarly, the applicant/employee is not entitled to an absolute pass merely by raising religion as a shield. How far you must go depends on a lot of factors. You should first determine if the candidate otherwise meets the criteria (there is no need to explore accomodating his/her schedule limitations if the candidate doesn't meet the education or experience requirements, for example). Then, if this is the best candidate, determine whether the limitations can be accommodated, how reasonably, and how much of a burden is created thereby. The burden for an employer to show that accomodation would be an undue hardship is not terribly high, but merely announcing that you have mandatory weekend work won't meet it. In a Supreme Court case where an individual refused mandatory overtime on Sundays due to his religious beliefs, the employer had explored whether others were willing to swap shifts with the individual, and whether the employee would work additional shifts to make up for shifts missed due to religious observance, and had given the employee warnings and notice that failure to report would result in discipline and discharge. The exploration of those options didn't solve the problem, but it was sufficient to demonstrate that the employer had made sufficient effort to attempt accomodation.

PS--Before going too far down this path, you also want to make sure that you are dealing with religious beliefs and practices, and not just personal preferences. I didn't major in religion, but I have not previously encountered anyone who stated that their religious beliefs prohibit them from working on both Saturdays and Sundays. If fishing or NASCAR is what is keeping this person from wanting to work weekends, then ... Hope this helps. DEN

HRPeg

I agree...I have never heard of a religion that required both Saturday and Sundays off. What religion is it? They must also be firm observers of all the religious practices of the faith, not just the ones that they prefer to follow. I read a case where a man claimed he could not work a particular route due to his religion, however, because he did not work 6 days as required by the religion, the finding was that it was not a firmly held belief.

Crout

I would pray (snort) that a more qualified candidate comes along so you can passover (har) this one.

Balloonman

Crout,
By far your post has given me the biggest laugh of the day!!!!!
Thank you!
My $0.02 worth.
DJ The Balloonman