An employee who wears a religious symbol within the company, another who requests an afternoon off for religious reasons, a third who prays every day with several colleagues in the middle of a workshop… The religious fact is increasingly at the heart of organizations. Today it concerns two out of three companies, often leaving managers helpless: what attitude should they adopt? What does the law ? What operating procedure should be used to supervise practices? How can we guarantee the cohesion of the work collective in the face of tensions that may arise?
It is not, for supervisors, “a subject like any other. They consider it more sensitive and riskier”, summarizes Lionel Honoré, professor of management sciences and deputy director of the Institute of Business Administration (IAE) in Brest. In order to give them keys to understanding but also practical benchmarks for the daily management of teams, this religious specialist has just published a new work, Managing religion at work (Dunod).
His essay first recalls some fundamental rules. Firstly, that the principle of neutrality is only required in the public sector – and in organizations carrying out public service missions. In private companies, freedom of belief is the legal basis. An employee can therefore wear a yarmulke, have an icon of the Holy Family on his desk or pray during a break. But this first principle must immediately be associated with a second: “The exercise of this religious freedom at work can be limited and regulated”explains the work.
In search of a balance
The company will be guided in this by a main vector: the fact that the smooth running of work is not hampered. To ensure management of religion, managers must have a framework. The author thus emphasizes that “the prerequisite (…) is the establishment of rules and provisions in the internal regulations ». We also expect the company to “political stance”. She must “define your posture between minimal tolerance and inclusion, between taking into account the religious practice of your employees on a case-by-case basis or institutionalizing a place for religion in organizational functioning”.
With this framework in mind, the local manager will have to manage religious affairs in a perpetual search for balance. Depending on the facts observed, the requests and the posture of the employee concerned, he or she must demonstrate openness or firmness. Openness to invite discussion and seek compromise, according to the “logic of reasonable accommodation”. Firmness in taking measures restricting religious freedom when the situation requires it. This will be the case, for example, when certain employees proselytize and put pressure on certain of their colleagues.
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