Ramadan represents a very important religious time of the year for Muslims. During this month, Muslims abstain from eating, drinking, and smoking between sunrise and sunset. But more importantly, it has religious and spiritual significance where Muslims are encouraged to pray more often, lead an honest and healthy lifestyle, and be generous and charitable towards less fortunate members of society. The month ends (usually after 29 or 30 days) with the festival of Eid al-Fitr.
During this month, Muslims face real challenges. Apart from hunger and thirst, they have to balance family life and religious commitments with work obligations. The physical impact of fasting—causing loss of or reduced energy, fatigue, and loss of concentration—can be challenging. This is where employers can step in to assist them and safeguard their safety at work while they are fasting.
What can employers do?
- Consult with and encourage Muslim employees to be open about their fasting and religious observances. By doing so, they become comfortable knowing their employers are aware of their needs and care about them. It also allows management to know who is or is not fasting. It should be remembered that not all Muslims will be fasting due to age, medical conditions, pregnancy, breastfeeding, or other health issues.
- Ideally, they should carry out a risk assessment, and where necessary, implement control measures to ensure their safety and their colleagues.
- Employers could place a message on the company intranet or staff noticeboard inviting staff to make known their individual needs during this month.
- Employers should be aware that during this month, energy, concentration and production levels will be lower than normal. Avoid placing additional duties, being considerate and respectful by not offering them food or drink, avoid work events that involve food or drink and try to avoid meetings towards the end of the day when energy and concentration levels are at their lowest.
- Managers and supervisors should be informed and educated about the physical and psychological impact of fasting and should be advised not to performance-manage and be less critical during this time. However, employers can act upon unreasonable and excessive conduct of staff.
- Employers can reach temporary agreements with affected staff to work flexible hours to allow them to meet their religious obligations (subject to the operational needs). Where possible and viable, employers can offer remote/working from home to enable a religious and family-friendly lifestyle. If possible, spare space can be assigned as a prayer room for rest and praying purposes. Employers can consider early starts/early finishes (subject to operational issues). Where additional time off is taken, you can always agree for it to be made up in the future. However, note should be taken that employers do not breach The Working Time Regulations dealing with rest/lunch breaks and daily rest periods.
- Whilst there are no public holidays for non-Christian religious days, Muslim employees will want to celebrate Eid. There may well be an influx of holiday requests. Although employers are entitled to deal with requests in accordance with their policy, employers should be more flexible, and requests should be considered and not dismissed outrightly because of operational reasons. The requests are likely to be for one-day, and employers should consider the impact of allowing more employees to be absent for that one-day. Of course, employers should consider the operational needs, other non-Muslim employees, and the overall impact on the business.
Employers should be mindful that failure to make any reasonable adjustments to accommodate Muslim employees could be deemed discriminatory on religious grounds. It is therefore important to seek professional HR advice to avoid disgruntled employees, grievances, or even expensive claims in employment tribunals, where such claims attract unlimited damages if successful. This is an opportunity for the employer to show their all-inclusivity and diversification, and the adoption of temporary changes will increase morale amongst Muslim employees, which often leads to better performance and productivity in the long run.
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