Vulnerable Muslim Employees

Religion in the work place has always been a big issue for many employees and employers, but it has become a bigger issue since the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. An article written in the Society for Human Resource Management Magazine entitled Muslim Employees: Valuable but Vulnerable describes the challenges faced by Muslim Americans in the work place and in society in general and what both employees and employer is doing to lighten the negative effect as well as the generalization and stereotype that Muslims currently face. Many employers engaged actively through their Human Resource department to put systems in place to accommodate their Muslim employees, likewise Muslim employees through active involvement help to bring awareness to their Non-Muslims counterparts to bring forth a better understand of their Muslim culture.

The Civil Right Act of 1964 and its amendments to include the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 prohibit discrimination in employment based on the bias of race, religion, sex or national origin (Bohlander, & Snell, 2010, p.105). It is based on these guidelines that all employers are charged with providing a work environment that discourages hostility among its employees and one that is free from discrimination.

The article mentioned above explains how three companies Verizon Wireless, Texas Instruments and the Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey implement measures that foster inclusion of all minority groups to include Muslims into the work place (Grossman, 2011, Mar.). Some of these measures include creating prayer rooms in the work environment where people of the Muslim faith can do their daily prayer comfortably, creating employee resource groups that are n...

... middle of paper ...

...h continue to incite violence against Americans. However, the fact remains that a manager’s responsibility is to create a work environment that is free all prejudice to include religious prejudice, whether the prejudice is directed against Muslims, Christians or people of other religious background. Likewise, it is important for employers and Human Resource Managers be careful when trying to create a friendly or tolerable work environment for one religious group that in the process, they do not overlook other religious groups or show favoritism to one religious group over the other or this could violate the Equal Employment Opportunity Act.

Works Cited

Bohlander, G. & Snell, S. (2010). Managing Human Resources. (15th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Grossman, R. J. (2011, Mar.). Muslim Employee: Valuable but Vulnerable. HR Magazine, p. 22-27.