Religious/Ethics in the Workplace

Taken from an Economist Article subtitled "Cross the Boss" it looks at how displaying religious values and ethics in the workplace affects how you are treated there.  Here are the conclusions of what that study revealed as conducted by Ms. Sreedhari Desai of the University of North Carolina.

Bosses ask employees to do unscrupulous things.  Nine percent of American employees said that managers pressured them to do things that violated their beliefs (Ethics and Compliance initiative).  However, this was not the case of those employees displaying religious symbols on their desk/person, or having a virtuous quote in their emails.  In these cases the study showed that the boss was less likely to ask them to act unethically.  Even simple displays of religious symbols in the workplace impacted the managers want or desire to ask employees to do unethical things, but when symbol actually belonged to the employee, then the boss was even less likely to ask that particular individual.  Basically, if you do not want your moral compass violated by a boss, then display you faith proudly.  Both Americans and Indians (people of India for those who cannot differentiate the term from Native Americans alternative post-colonial name) were used in these studies.

Interestingly bosses who were religious were more likely to discriminate in favor of those who openly share their faith via symbols as opposed to people who displayed nothing.  As such, people who hide their faith or have none were at a disadvantage to the openly religious people in this situation.

In contrast white collar people in India did not give preference or discriminate as much compared to their American counterparts with respect to if they shared the same religion.  Instead Muslims in India were more likely to respect people displaying their Christian or Hindi symbols.  Thus this demonstrates to me that it is partly culture and religious values that impact how people are treated in the workplace.

Final Thought:  Interesting isn't it.  People will be less likely (at least in the U.S.) to pressure you to do unethical things simply by displaying your faith visually and shield you from work place pressures.  Food for thought.