My employee works the evening shift but, due to their religion, can’t work after dark for a month. Do we have to accommodate them?

Both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (Government Code Sections 12940, et seq.) require employers to provide reasonable accommodations based on employees’ religious beliefs unless doing so would impose an undue hardship. Religious accommodations can take many forms, depending on the circumstances, including, for example, schedule changes or restrictions, religious grooming and religious dress practices.

Often, these requests may sound difficult, but exploring options is important. Allowing coworkers to substitute or swap shifts is a possibility, or changing the employee to a different position might be an idea. Getting input from the employee themselves could provide more avenues to explore.

In other words: Engage in the interactive process of exploring options. Don’t automatically respond by saying that the request poses an “undue hardship.”

Religious accommodation can pose difficult problems for an employer. Different religions have different varying restrictions. Keep in mind that the law defines “religion” very broadly, so employers may be faced with many different types of requests.

The key in these situations is the interactive process noted above and exploring options to reach a result that is acceptable to both the employer and the employee.

Read more about Religion in the HR Library.