More US Firms Are Boosting Faith-Based Support For Employees
- Join Brian Grim
- Date: Wednesday, May 13, 2020
- New York Time 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
- Online – Peace Islands Institute New York*
- Free and open to the public – registration required
It has become standard practice for U.S. corporations to assure employees of support regardless of their race, gender or sexual orientation. There’s now an intensifying push to ensure that companies are similarly supportive and inclusive when it comes to employees’ religious beliefs.
One barometer: More than 20% of the Fortune 100 have established faith-based employee resource groups. Corporate America is at a tipping point toward giving religion similar attention to that given the other major diversity categories. A few companies have long-established faith-in-the-workplace programs, such as Arkansas-based Tyson Foods, which deploys a team of more than 90 chaplains to comfort and counsel employees at its plants and offices. That program began in 2000.
The top 10 in the rankings on the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation’s Corporate Religious Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (REDI) Index feature some of America’s best-known companies – Google’s parent company Alphabet, Intel, Tyson Foods, Target, Facebook, American Airlines, Apple, Dell, American Express and Goldman Sachs. Tyson won points for its chaplaincy program; most of the others have formed either a single interfaith employee resource group or separate groups for major religions such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
Google’s interfaith group, the Inter Belief Network, has chapters for those faiths and for Buddhists, while Intel has a group for agnostics and atheists, as well as groups for major religious faiths. See the full report here.
* Peace Islands Institute New York, founded in 2012, is a nonprofit devoted to promoting interfaith and intercultural dialogue. They welcome everyone in society with programs to connect people in real life and help instill respect and understanding for all people.