A Religious Accommodation Policy Assessment for Texas Cites: A Case Study of Texas Employee Handbooks
Abstract
Employee's religious practices can interfere with workplace practices and norms. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion. The right of the employee and employers should be spelled out in a policy document as an employee handbook.
Purpose: The purpose of this Applied Research Project is to describe and assess religious accommodation policy in Texas City employee handbooks.
Methods: Texas City employee accommodation policy was assessed by content analyzing 24 Texas City employee handbooks for religious accommodation requests both inside (i.e., dress) and outside (i.e., holiday leave) the workplace.
Findings: Overall, for accommodations outside the workplace Texas City employee accommodation policy is covered, but for accommodations inside the workplace there is much room for improvement for Texas Cities as a whole. In general, for these Texas Cities accommodation policy inside the workplace concerning informal meetings and religious symbols needs to be improved.
