Monthly Archives: May 2025

Congratulations to Accenture for being the most faith-friendly workplace among Global Fortune 500 companies in 2025! This is the 6th annual Faith-Friendly Workplace REDI Index published by the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, and the 3rd time Accenture has taken or tied for the top spot.

This year, a record number of global companies participated, including those based in the U.K., and for the first time, in the Middle East. The REDI Index has 11 indicators of best practices including having faith-and-belief employee resource groups (ERGs), sharing best practices with other companies, and honoring holy days of their employees, among other accommodations such as dress and diet.

Leaders from Accenture’s interfaith network gathered in Washington DC last week to be recognized for their work in creating workplaces where people can bring their whole “self” to work, including their faith.

Learn more about faith-and-belief friendly workplaces here.

The Religious Freedom & Business Foundation Is thrilled to announce that Glenda Cameron is the 2025 ERG Leader of the Year.

Glenda is recognized for her extraordinary service and pioneering impact — not only within her own companies (EMC and now Dell Technologies) — but also in helping other companies on their journeys toward more religiously inclusive, faith-friendly workplaces for people of all faith and beliefs.

When DELL and DELL merged in 2016, Glenda was leading EMC’s interfaith ERG, but DELL had no such ERG. As the merger was being fleshed out, Glenda was the Interfaith ERG champion that brought EMC’s interfaith ERG to DELL. And thanks to Glenda’s pioneering work, DELL has become the third most Faith-friendly business among Fortune 500 companies today.

Leaders of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) do so as volunteers in addition to their main jobs.

Accenture takes top spot as most faith-friendly workplace

Accenture is most faith-friendly workplace among Global Fortune 500 companies in 2025, for the third year running. Equinix takes the number two spot, with DELL, Merck and Intuit rounding out the top five spots on the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation’s 6th annual Faith-Friendly Workplace REDI Index survey.

CMS Energy, Rolls-Royce, and FirstEnergy also score highly among Fortune 500 companies for their faith-friendly policies and practices. Lexmark made its debut among Fortune 500 companies as a record number of global companies participated, including those based in the U.K., and for the first time, in the Middle East, with the entry of Future Pipes Industries.

The REDI survey has 11 indicators of best practices including having faith-and-belief employee resource groups (ERGs), sharing best practices with other companies, and honoring holy days of their employees, among other accommodations such as dress and diet.

In addition to the REDI Index, we monitor the People web pages of Fortune 500 companies.

Faith-oriented inclusion and belonging initiatives have grown in intensity in Q1 2025. For example, the average REDI Monitor score increased significantly from 2024 to 2025 (3.6 to 4.2), and more than doubled since 2022, as shown in the chart.

As mentioned, the average REDI Monitor score increased significantly from last year. This indicates an increase in the intensity with which companies are embracing faith-friendly workplaces. Another indicator is that for the first time in 2025, eight Fortune 500 companies mentioned the REDI Index on their websites. 

At the same time, we saw a slight drop (from 62 to 60) in companies reporting that they have faith-based ERGs.

Also, coinciding with many companies decreasing the visibility of inclusion and belonging information on websites, many U.S. companies stopped participating in external benchmarking surveys this year. Indeed we saw a marked increase in U.K. and international participation even as some U.S.-based firms took a year off.

ABOUT THE INDEX AND MONITOR

The Faith-Friendly Workplace REDI Index is an international benchmarking survey that companies use to track their progress in (and be recognized for) embracing religion and belief (including non-theistic beliefs) as an integral part of their overall commitment to workplace belonging and success. The 2025 REDI covers activities occurring during the 12 months ending March 31, 2025. 

Of the companies participating in the REDI Index survey:

• • 75% of their public-facing websites mention religion and/or describe how religion is part of their workplace belonging commitments. 21% mention this on other webpages. Only 4% make no mention of religion on their websites.
• • 92% have formally approved, faith-and/or-belief-oriented employee resource groups (ERGs) or other such official employee-led groups whose aim is to foster a welcoming, faith-friendly workplace aligned with the company’s purpose.
• • 92% described their practices related to faith-oriented ERGs or other faith-oriented activities to other companies.
• • 100% address religion (incl. faith and belief) as a topic in their internal HR training.
• • 25% provide professional chaplaincy services to serve their employees, while an additional 50% provide other spiritual care opportunities.
• • 92% seek to understand the faiths and beliefs of their clients and stakeholders.
• • Most have procedures that are communicated annually to request accommodations.
• • 88% report that their employees participated in related external professional conferences or faith-related professional events.
• • 58% match employee donations to faith-based and religious organizations.
• • All report celebrating or honoring holy days of their employees. 58% do this both internally and externally.

The public websites of Fortune 500 companies are carefully analyzed by our staff to determine if they include religion as part of their belonging and inclusion initiatives. The REDI Monitor allows us to assess the state of faith-friendly workplaces in FTSE 100 and BSE 100 companies. Not all topics from the opt-in REDI Index survey can be observed. Therefore, scores are given for those mentions of religion we can see, including: having faith-oriented ERGs; mentioning religious nondiscrimination and/or inclusion, as well as the rationale for such policies; linking to additional information; and (for some) mentioning being on the REDI Index or Monitor.

In all, among the Fortune 500, 177 companies saw an increased REDI Monitor Score, while 136 saw their score go down. 187 companies stayed the same.

For more information, down load the full report here or visit our Faith-Friendly Workplace REDI page here.

Is workplace religious inclusion on the rise?

Corporations across the U.S. have scaled back their diversity programs, not only in response to the changing environment, but also in response to Supreme Court rulings finding that some affirmative action programs ran afoul of law.

Because most faith-friendly initiatives have been situated within these corporate programs, have they been scaled back along with the other initiatives?

Tomorrow, at the annual Fortune 500 Faith@Work conference in Washington DC, the results of the 6th annual Fortune 500 Faith-Friendly Workplace Report will answer this question. Stay tuned!

What to Expect at Washington Faith@Work Summit

Good news – despite economic challenges, major companies are gathering together to highlight the business imperative of making their workplaces faith-and-belief friendly. Dare to Overcome begins on May 20 with with special resource roundtables for faith-specific and interfaith employee resource groups (ERGs).

Following a networking lunch, the Keynote Plenary will feature Busch School of Business Dean Andrew Abela. All attendees get his new book Superhabits: the Universal System for a Successful Life. Also, our sponsors will share their Ways Forward in today’s changing environment.

The program is filled with a variety of sessions that inspire, equip and connect people from across the US and world. Topics include the nuts and bolts of faith@work initiatives such as employee resource groups (ERGs).

We will also look at ways faith initiatives at work increase productivity by increasing resiliency through stronger networks as well as spiritual and emotional health.

As Dare to Overcome ends and the IRF Builders Forum begins, the cross-over event at 3pm on May 21 looks at how our India team have successfully piloted a human rights and business skills curriculum for teenagers.

The Executive President of the University carrying out the pilot will receive the 2025 Global Business & Interfaith Peace God Medal, an honor shared previously by CEOs of companies as diverse as Intel, Tyson Foods, Godrej Industries, American Airlines, EY, Senior United Nations officials, and other leaders of business in more than 30 countries worldwide.

The closing plenary of Dare to Overcome will coincide with the opening of the first-ever International Religious Freedom (IRF) Builders Forum. U.S. Senior Official performing duties of the Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom will deliver a keynote followed by a fireside chat with RFBF President Brian Grim, IRF Secretariat Chair Greg Mitchell and Chris Seiple, Senior Fellow, Love Your Neighbor Community (LYNC).

𝐀𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐆𝐫𝐢𝐦, 𝐏𝐡.𝐃. – 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐭 𝐒𝐓𝐖𝐒 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓

Dr. Brian Grim, Founding President of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation (RFBF), will speak at Shape the World Summit 2025 in Rome & Vatican City.

An internationally recognised expert on the intersection of economic sustainability and religious freedom, Dr. Grim has worked with multinational corporations to demonstrate how belief inclusion strengthens innovation, workplace culture, and long-term impact. He is also a Davos speaker and a trusted advisor on global interfaith business strategies.

At STWS 2025, Dr. Grim will speak on:
🎙 “Creative Leadership for Technology: Dialogue for Impact – A Creative Leadership Approach from the Tech World”, as part of the Creative Leadership for Dialogue segment. He will explore how values-based leadership and freedom of belief can empower ethical innovation and social impact within today’s tech-driven economies.”

In this Jubilee year at the Vatican, Consulus will convene 200 leaders and senior executives from the worlds of geopolitics, business and faith-based organisations, for dialogue and debate on creative leadership for social impact in a time of turmoil, economic inclusion, tectonic shifts due to AI, and the ripple effects after a year of worldwide elections.

Shape the World Summit has been organised since 2005 and is inspired by the vision of UNESCO Peace Prize Winner Chiara Lubich who launched the idea in 1991 to build an Economy of Communion(EoC), a concept inspired from Catholic Social Teaching so that no one is in need. In 2017, Pope Francis pushed the entire EoC movement to go beyond giving and work to change the rules of the socio-economic system so that there is no more victim.

• Dates: 12th to 13th June, 2025
• Venue: Urbaniana University, Rome, and Vatican City

About Consulus

Shaping the Future of AI and Religious Liberty

Is there a positive relationship between artificial intelligence, religious freedom, and economic growth? Some research indicates that there is. Not all agree. Join us in Washington DC May 20-21 to hear top experts weigh in on this and other critical conversations around work and religious freedom for all. 

Leading figures from the two colliding worlds of AI and religious liberty – a senior fellow at Microsoft, an evangelical leader, and an AI researcher – will discuss the rapid development of AI and its growing, multifaceted impacts on religious liberty in the United States and abroad.

A New Way to Begin

For the first time, Dare to Overcome (DTO) will begin (8:30am on Tuesday, May 20) with resource and networking roundtables for the four most prevalent faith employee resource groups (ERGs): Christian, Interfaith, Jewish, and Muslim.

Members and leaders of faith ERGs will have the opportunity to network and learn from their peers as well as benefit from the resources and experience of the convening sponsors: Coca-Cola Consolidated, Interfaith America, Clal, and the El-Hibri Foundation.

Success Story: Merck Interfaith Doubles in a Year

In these disruptive times, the Faith@Work movement is growing. Join us on May 20th to hear what’s behind the amazing growth of Merck’s Interfaith Organization Employee Business Resource Group (EBRG)! They have double in size over the past year, spread to more countries, and the growth may just be getting started.

When a Christian worker told his employer that shaving his beard to comply with company policy violated his religious beliefs, Triple Canopy, a Virginia-based federal contractor, called his beard a “purely personal preference” and forced him to resign. In December 2023, the company was ordered to pay the former employee nearly $111,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit.

In another recent case, a Muslim teen who worked at a Chipotle restaurant in Kansas alleged that her supervisor repeatedly asked her to remove her hijab and eventually partially removed it himself. In April 2025, the national chain was ordered to pay the former employee $20,000 to settle her religious harassment suit.

After years of decreases in workplace religious discrimination lawsuits, the trend has reversed in recent years, largely due to employees seeking religious exemptions from coronavirus vaccine mandates. In fiscal 2022, U.S. workers filed 13,814 religious discrimination charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a massive increase from 2,111 the previous year and the highest number filed since 2018.

Read full article.

Leading figures from the two colliding worlds of AI and religious liberty discuss the rapid development of AI and its impacts on religious liberty today.

WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES, May 8, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ — Leading figures from the two colliding worlds of AI and religious liberty – a senior fellow at Microsoft, an evangelical leader, and an AI researcher – will discuss the rapid development of AI and its growing, multifaceted impacts on religious liberty in the United States and abroad.

The May 21, 2025, panel will examine the risks AI poses to humanity, especially to religious pluralism and freedom of thought and practice, as well as the potential opportunities for AI tools to serve the flourishing of religious communities across the world. The session will also consider how religious leaders can engage more in the broader discourse around AI governance and development, what safeguards and mechanisms might help to prevent AI from being used to surveil or suppress religious minorities, and what responsibilities AI companies might have to consult with religious stakeholders when designing systems that may affect spiritual life or expression.

READ FULL PRESS RELEASE