Dina Gerdeman Recent US Supreme Court cases demonstrate that workplace religious concerns are growing. What can managers do to prepare? It begins with a positive attitude, according to Derek van Bever.

How to deal with religion at work is a contentious and litigious issue that many executives struggle with. It’s so popular that Harvard Business School has devoted few courses and case studies.

“Religion and business is considered one of the last taboos,” Professor Senior Derek van Bever. “Our students have been asking for it because they see very clearly that they will be in positions of global leadership where they will have to deal with it.”

To address this requirement, van Bever wrote the case study, Managing Religion at Work Workplace, using two well-known instances of discrimination based on religion that the US Supreme Court heard in recent times: one involving an unemployed Muslim woman who had to fight Abercrombie & Fitch for rejecting her job application because she was wearing a hijab due to religious reasons. The other case involved a baker whose faith-based beliefs led him not to design the cake for an event for gay couples.

“MY GUESS IS THAT MOST COMPANIES DON’T HAVE A WRITTEN POLICY THAT ARTICULATES HOW TO HANDLE RELIGION IN THE WORKPLACE IN A WAY THAT’S INSTRUCTIVE FOR MANAGEMENT”

Both of the incidents stemmed from commonplace work situations that all firms face. But when religious beliefs were at odds with business ethics and hurt feelings resulted in legal disputes that lasted for several years.

These two cases have raised issues for business owners and managers to consider. For instance, can companies modify their dress codes or even their branding to accommodate religious attire? Do the owners of small private firms turn away customers based on their beliefs about a particular religion? These thorny questions can cause anyone to squirm because of their ambiguity. However, van Bever believes today’s business managers must start thinking about precise responses.

The number of complaints about discrimination based on religion has been increasing by 50% over the past 15 years, while settlement amounts have surpassed double, according to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data.

“My guess is that most companies don’t have a written policy that articulates how to handle religion in the workplace in a way that’s instructive for management,” says van Bever, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School. “You want to make sure your organization has policies in place and they are being communicated so people on the front line don’t have to decide how to work through these issues and make things up in the moment.”

Muslim headscarf and retailer’s dress code

Retailer of sporting goods Abercrombie & Fitch, founded in 1892, exploded after being purchased in 1988 by The Limited 1988. Under the leadership of the CEO Michael Jeffries, the company retained a touch of its signature safari-inspired style while placing more focus on casual clothes. It expanded to over 1,000 stores worldwide, with over $3.5 billion in sales in 2008.

One of the most critical aspects of promoting the clothes was the dress code for employees, which Jeffries described as “The Look,” which was described as an iconic East Coast collegiate style. The style of salespersons dictated how they were referred to by the name of “sales models,” styled their hair, the appearance of their nails, their body shape, and even the shoes they wore. The tan-colored, shirtless men referred to for their role as “lifeguards” were placed conspicuously close to the entrances of stores because “good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool good-looking people,” Jeffries stated in an interview in 2006. Salon interview.

In 2008, Samantha Elauf was confident that she had done a great job in her salesperson interview job in one of the Abercrombie & Fitch stores in Oklahoma, particularly when a manager informed her that she’d be contacted within a few days to discuss training. Then, she received no call.

A colleague at the store looked into her application and discovered that an upper-level manager had stopped Elauf from being employed. The reason? He claimed the headdress she wore as a sign of modesty within her Muslim faith was not in line with the store’s dress code. “No one had ever told me that I could not wear a headscarf and sell clothing,” Elauf was quoted in 2015. New York Times story. “… It was absolutely shocking for me.”

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission joined Elauf in a lawsuit against the company. They won in the initial court hearing. However, Abercrombie prevailed on an appeal. This was based on the judge declaring that Elauf should have spoken out about her need for an accommodation that did not conform to the store’s policies.

After the case made it to the US Supreme Court in 2015, Justice Antonin Scalia said, “This is really easy.” He announced that the court would be siding with Elauf 8-1 ruling that according to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it’s unlawful for a person to “fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”

The ruling could prompt business leaders to consider that their branding practices may be discriminatory against some employees, van Bever says.

“I assume a lot of companies would be sympathetic to Abercrombie because they want to be clear from a brand perspective about the profile they’re putting forward in terms of whom they hire,” van Bever explains. “But employers need to understand that where that runs into trouble is when their business prerogative conflicts with a person’s fundamental religious rights.”