De more and more employers are adapting to religious phenomena. According to the 2020-2021 edition of the barometer of religious fact in business carried out by the Institut Montaigne (“Religion at work: believing in dialogue”) with 25,000 executives and managers, religious practices have become more intrusive in the life of companies in France lately. Two out of three respondents noticed it. According to this survey, rigorous behavior is observed in 12% of workplaces against 8% in 2019.
If proselytism is particularly observed among evangelical practitioners, negative behavior towards women and behaviors “the most problematic and dysfunctional” mainly concern Muslim employees, specifies the same study. “Statistically, we have to distinguish two parts. 80% of situations in which the religious fact appears at work are well managed and at worst only generate frustrations. The most radical dysfunctions are concentrated in 15% to 18% of the remaining situations ”, indicates Lionel Honoré, director of the Observatory of Religious Facts in Business (OFRE) and author of the study, quoted by Le Figaro.
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Dealing with religious facts
Éric Challan-Belval, boss of the integration company specializing in recycling and cleaning La feuille d’Érable, interviewed by our colleagues, declared: “Twenty years ago, I had very clear and radical positions on secularism. Now, I advocate reasonable accommodation. At the beginning of the year 2021, he decided to put in place a neutrality clause, drawn up with his lawyer, to prohibit any conspicuous religious sign in his company. For him, it is “above all [de rassurer] managers, and this allows clear rules to be established ”.
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This business manager asks a female driver wearing the hijab to replace it with a simple cloth, so as to guard against mechanical risks. As for one of his employees who asks for a quiet space to pray, he replies that the locker rooms as well as the premises in general are not suitable for this religious practice. He later realized that the puddles in the toilets were due to the ablution of some of his employees. Therefore, the boss decided to install Turkish toilets as well as showers.
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