Introduction
Management is perceived as the art of science and an art, because it requires some artistic skills so that a manager can be molded, or to make the group or the individuals who a manager is managing more effective than how he met them. Management in a given organization becomes effective if the manager has an understanding of the four main pillars of the concept including planning, organizing, directing, and controlling. However, apart from the four pillars of management, there are other skills that managers need to possess to become effective in their operations. The value of a manager is evaluated by his or her outputs since taking office, and the ability to address all the organization challenges including cultural diversity issues which are major issues in the modern business world due to globalization. A manager may be effective in managing machines and ways of manipulating raw materials into finished goods, but it may require extra expertise to manage people because they are social beings who have a diverse orientation to life, and also dissimilar cultural backgrounds. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how religion affects the workplace and some of the measures that managers can deploy to ensure effectiveness in a multicultural organization through effective cross-cultural management.
Cross-Cultural Management Concept
In the modern business world, managers are responsible for ensuring the three aspects of the organizational structure are enhanced, due to their important role in cultural management. The three aspects include the management of employee relationship, and their relationship with the organization, the vertical and horizontal management systems that are essential in defining the superiors and the subordinates in the organization, and the entire view of the subordinates on the organizational goals, destiny, and purpose, and their place in the organization. In management, managers are expected to deal with issues of cross culture every day, and the success of every organization depends on the manager's ability to address the issue appropriately and making each and every stakeholder happy with the decision (Friedman, 2016) . Today, people from workplace come from different cultural backgrounds, while due to globalization, business is conducting businesses outside their domestic market hence exposing them to other cultures which need to be managed effectively in order to achieve the organization goals and objectives. Cross-culture, refer to the different forms of interactivity that are presented between the different groups of culture, or a discourse that is concerned with the cultural interactivity. Due to the increasing immigrants of workers, it is important for every organization to come up with mechanisms of managing cross-cultural subordinates as a way of reducing conflicts at the workplace which may affect an organization negatively. This can be achieved by having social cohesion in the workplace where both national and international cultural diversities are highly respected by both the management and subordinates. Different issues arise in the today workplaces due to cross-cultural diversities. Some of the issues include differences in communication styles, differences in management processes, succession and promotion factors, and different religious beliefs among others (Barak, 2016) .
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Religion at the Work Place
Under the first amendment to the United States Constitutions, American citizens are given two rights to enjoy in terms of religion. First, American citizens have the right to be free from any government imposed religion and second, they have the right to practice any religion. However, the private business owners are not restricted by the First Amendment hence, they are subject to both state and federal laws, that ban employment discrimination based on their religion. Due to the huge number of employees in the United States and the number of religious faiths, the issue of religious discrimination tends to raise hard questions where policies are being developed to protect each and every employee (Zschirnt, 2016) .
In the United States, religion happens to be among the cross-cultural issues that have adverse effects on the relationship between the employers and employees at the workplace. People come from a different religious background, and even those who share a common religion may have differences in their interpretation of the beliefs. For example, even workplaces that have Christians only have differences where some may be Protestants while others are Catholics. Although these people believe in the same God, they differ immensely in some of their conducts mainly based on ways they are socialized. In such setting, these people may be from different religions including Muslims, Buddhists, or any other religious background. The issues of religion at workplace start immediately after the application of jobs where applicants are expected to indicate their religious background which may be used to discriminate them thus creating major issues (Connor, 2015) . Also, during the interview, there are cases where interviewees are expected to elaborate on their beliefs, hence religious differences may bring issues in situations where the superiors do not want a certain religion at their workplace hence raising conflict of situation which may be carried to other operations of the organization. Also, religious harassment may take place when some employees’ ore superiors are trying to convert their workmates or their subordinates into their religion.
Religion Freedom at Workplace
Since the September 11 tragedy, some citizens have increased directed their anger to certain religious groups whose perpetrators of the terror attacks are believed to be affiliated with the most affected group being the Muslim community (Wallace, 2014) . Due to the misdirected anger, a number of individuals from this religion have to experience major discrimination even though they are innocent. However, the labor unions and employers have the responsibility to ensure freedom of religion to all their employees, regardless of their religious background or their beliefs. there are many forms of religious discrimination in the workplace with the most common being denial of a job or promotion due to affiliation with a given religion, or being denied accommodation in a given workplace because of the religious beliefs and practices or because an individual does not come from a religion that may be preferred by the superiors.
Today, many workplaces are experiencing religion discrimination, with some of the discriminations being women being fired for wearing hijab at work, or a Christian counselor being threatened that his or her license will be terminated due to the support of the traditional Christian marriages among others. It is easy to see some of these treatments are unfair but due to lack of freedom of religion at our workplaces, the issue of discrimination due to individual religion has continued up to date. However, one of the reasons according to Esbeck (2015), these events are occurring today is the fact that there is some individual who views the world from their personal perspective, hence failing to accept that each and every human being has the right to do what he or she finds appropriate provided it does not affect other people ways of carrying on their activities.
Employee Discrimination Based on Religion Laws
Employee discrimination is considered unlawful in the United States. For example, according to the Missouri Human Right Act, employees are protected against workplace discrimination based on their religion in hiring, firing, promotion and other conditions of employment. Also, the act prohibits landlords and house owners against discriminating individuals based on their religious backgrounds. Also, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits workplace discrimination based on individual religion, nationality, race, and color among others (Esbeck, 2015) . Some of the employment actions regarding religions harassment and discrimination that are prohibited by the united state workplace discrimination act include: physical and cultural clothing and traits, where discriminating others based on their physical, and dressing code which is associated with their religious practices is considered lawful.
For example, Muslim women are supposed to wear hijab whether at work or any whenever they are in public. Therefore, according to the law, employers and workmates in workplaces where female Muslim employees are expected to respect their dressing code. Some of these policies were developed to ensure such individual enjoys their freedom of religion and all the aspects that come with their religion. Secondly, the law prohibits the action of employee discrimination due to association (Ali, 2015) . For example, there are cases where superiors or subordinates may discriminate their employees or workmates due to association with people from different religions. Such cases occur where employees whose partners including husband or wife may come from different religions or practice including going to mosque hence these individuals are denied promotions due to their friends or spouses.
Effects of Workplace Discrimination Due To Religious Differences
Discrimination refers to an assault on the notion of human rights. Discrimination result to certain groups of people being denied full human rights simply because of what they believe. Whenever a certain group of people is denied their human rights, it affects the workplace and the society significantly. Some of the harmful effects of workplace discrimination due to religion include; firstly, workplace discrimination due to religion poisons the trust that is needed in a workplace for employers and employees to live in peace. Whenever some employees feel discriminated due to their religion, they lack the trust hence affecting their conduct, and in most cases, they end up isolating themselves from others because they feel their opinions’, and suggestions may not be valued due to their religion. Secondly, workplace discrimination due to individual religion has an adverse effect on the individual mental and physical conditions due to the issue of stress, anxiety, and depression (Zschirnt, 2016) . The most prominent effects of workplace discrimination due to religion are fear, anger, and inferiority. Whenever employees have fear or feel inferior, it affects their job performance, job satisfaction hence affecting the organizational performance.
Recommendations
The study has clearly demonstrated that workplace discrimination due to individual religion has an adverse effect on a given organization. Therefore, some of the recommendations to eliminate the issue of discrimination in cross-cultural organization include ensuring all the employees are given equal opportunities during hiring, firing, and promotion regardless of their religious background. Offering each equal individual opportunity make the workplaces more interesting due to the diversity in decision making and ideas. Also, I would recommend the managers to understand that cross-cultural team in a given workplace is not about is not about minimizing the religious differences between the employees, but making value out of the diverse team.
Conclusion
From the report, it is clear that workplace discrimination because of individual religion has major effects on the organization and the society in general. Although it is unclear how the issue of workplace discrimination may be addressed due to the diversity, they are worth receiving close attention, specifically at the American workplaces so that they can assist in growing the workplaces more diverse, and increasing the output of each employee due to job satisfaction which is highly affected by discrimination. Some of the most common forms of discrimination in the workplace due to religion include dressing code, association, and affiliation among others. some of the effects of workplace discrimination according to the study include poisoning of the trust and relationship between the employers and employees or even between the employees, adverse effects on individual mental and physical health due to stress, depression and anxiety, while the most prominent and worst effect of workplace discrimination due to religion is creation of fear, feeling inferior which have direct effect on employee satisfaction and performance. Therefore, for the business operating in the modern business world, it is important to create policies which will ensure all the employees enjoy their freedom of religion to create a better working environment.
References
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