One of the things that I hear about a lot working with organizations is how difficult religious accommodation feels.
Passover begins next week and in the spirit of things, I thought I’d share a success story that I just heard about.
B&H is a photo, video and audio company in the USA. They have a superstore in New York City as well as an online store. And the owners are of the Jewish Orthodox faith.
“So what?” you may say.
The ‘so what’ is that the store is closed for the Sabbath (Saturday in this case). In fact the store closes at 2pm on the Friday. This also applies to their online store: you can browse, but you can’t purchase anything on the Sabbath.
AND – and this is the really great part – the store and online store are closed for Passover (March 25 – April 2 this year). A whole 9 days!!
What a great example of how faith can be part of what is valued in a workplace and still have your company be profitable. For those who are finding giving employees time off to observe (note: not closing their entire organization) as part of their commitment to inclusion, I say think again.
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copyright 2013 Annemarie Shrouder
Author, Speaker and Facilitator on issues of Diversity and Inclusion
www.beeing.ca
That is very interesting, I would be very curious to know what other business’ have religious days in their company policies. I know chick-fil-a is always closed on Sundays because of their Christian influence. Are there any Muslim companies that are closed during Ramadan?