If your business is like most respondents to a recent survey, your employees will have Thanksgiving off again next year, with pay. The average number of paid holidays that full-time employees can expect next year is ten, according to the survey. But how do you arrive at the right number? Which days off to choose? And how do you avoid claims of religious discrimination? Read on for some ideas.

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Does Your Company's Holiday
Policy Pass Muster?

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As the table at the bottom of this article illustrates, the number of
employers recognizing religious holidays celebrated by minority groups is
small, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource
Management.
Is that a problem? Probably not. Employers aren't specifically required to
recognize any particular holidays. However, depending upon your policies,
you could be vulnerable to a religious discrimination charge. In a
nutshell, you must be careful not to treat one religious group differently from
another.
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3. What the Law States
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on
religion, but doesn't define what constitutes a religion. It does state, however,
that it embraces "all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as
belief." The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), meanwhile,
maintains that religious practices "include moral or ethical beliefs about what
is right and wrong which are sincerely held with the strength of traditional
religious views." In other words, the term is fairly open-ended.
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If an employee asks you for a day off to observe a religious holiday that
doesn't happen to be on your holiday calendar, the EEOC does expect you to
try to make a "reasonable accommodation," just as you would for an
employee with disabilities. You would be off the hook, however, if granting the
request would cause an "undue hardship" to your business -- a determination
made on a case-by-case basis (see sidebar).
One popular way to deal with this issue is to offer employees one or two
"floating" holidays -- days they can elect to take off for any purpose, including
birthdays. According to the SHRM survey, 43 percent of employers offer one
floating holiday, and 29 percent offer two. Smaller proportions -- 14, 9 and 5
percent, offer three, four and five floating holidays, respectively. (Floating
holidays are not counted against employees' personal day quota.)

5. When is a Hardship "Undue"?
Here are some tests a court would consider when deciding whether you are
justified in accommodating employees requesting a religious holiday that isn't
on your holiday schedule. Note: It's easier to justify rejecting an
accommodation request based on religion, than on a disability
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Cost. What will you lose by granting a requested religious holiday? Will it be
substantial in proportion to the size of your business?
Disruption. How difficult would it be to re-arrange employee work schedules,
production schedules and other related issues to cover the absence of the
employee requesting the day or days off?
Safety. Would the employee's absence increase hazards to other employees in
the workplace?
Contracts. Would granting the request force you to break any rules under, for
example, a labor union contract due to the absence of the employee
requesting time off?

6. Floating Holiday Issues
Following are some policy considerations regarding floating holidays:
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• How many to give: There is no magic number. But your decision should be
made in the context of your overall paid time off policy (PTO), including
fixed holidays, personal days, sick days and vacation days. You could add a
pair of floating holidays while pulling out two fixed holidays for no net
change in PTO.

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• Black-out days: You may have particular days of the year in which you
need every hand on deck, and don't permit floating holidays on those
days. But if you need to set black-out days, be careful not to go overboard
as that would defeat the purpose of the policy. Also be sure blackout days
don't correspond to known religious holidays that some employees might
wish to take.
• Accrual of holidays: You can treat floating holidays in the same way you
treat vacation days, requiring employees to reach particular tenure
thresholds before earning them.
• Carry-over of holiday allotments: To preserve the comparability to
standard holidays, it may be best not to allow employees to bank unused
floating holidays for future years. However, floating holidays should accrue
over the course of each year in the same way as other forms of PTO, so
that the employee gets credit for unused PTO the year he or she leaves the
company.

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Floating holidays, while perhaps the most generous, aren't the only way to
accommodate an employee who wants to be away from work for a religious
observance - particularly if it doesn't require a full day. For example, you can
also allow employees to adjust their work schedules on a given day by coming
in early, working late, working through the lunch hour, or making up the hours
by working longer days before or after the requested holiday.
But again, be sure the arrangement is consistent with how you treat time-off
requests for other religious groups.
As with any other personnel policy, how you handle floating holidays should
be clearly documented in your employee handbook.

9. New Year's Day 95%
Memorial Day 94%
Fourth of July* 76%
Labor Day 95%
Thanksgiving 97%
Day after Thanksgiving 76%
Christmas 97%
Christmas Eve 47%
Martin Luther King Day 37%
Presidents' Day 35%
Veterans' Day 20%
Columbus Day 16%
Good Friday 28%
First Day of Passover 3%
Prevalence of Holidays
*July 4th falls on a Saturday in 2015. 60% of employers report that July 3,2015 will be a recognized holiday,
while 76% list July 4th as a holiday.
-- Source: Society for Human Resource Management 2015 Paid Holiday Survey
Other holidays not on the list include Kwanzaa, Eid al-Adha, and Eid al-Fitr.
Easter was not included in the survey because it is always recognized on a Sunday.

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