An increasing number of employers are understanding the value of creating an inclusive work environment, where all employees feel valued, supported, and comfortable in expressing their authentic identity. However, compared to other identity groups such as gender or race, religious diversity and inclusion at work is often overlooked by researchers, practitioners, and employers (Héliot et al., 2020). Pearn Kandola’s ‘Religion at Work’ research project aims address this issue by raising awareness around employee experiences of expressing religious identity at work.
Christianity is the largest religion in the UK (Office for National Statistics, 2012) and US (Pew Research Centre, 2022) and many organisations’ schedules are centred around Christian holidays. However, there is a lack of research into the experiences of Christian employees at work, perhaps due to an assumption from researchers that, as a majority group, Christians would be less likely to experience discrimination.
This overall project was designed to highlight the experiences of UK and US employees in relation expressing their religious identity at work, and to provide recommendations to assist organisations in creating a workplace culture which welcomes religious diversity and encourages employees to freely express their religious identity. This report focuses solely on the experiences of Christian employees in the UK and US.
