Ramadan during the Coronavirus Pandemic

Thursday 23rd April 2020 signifies the start of Ramadan, which is the holy month of the Islamic calendar in which Muslims often commit to a period of fasting during daylight hours.

With the Coronavirus disrupting normal daily life across not only the UK, but also the world, it is important to remember that some parts of ordinary life still stand for some.

There are 5 things that we’d suggest you do during this time, enabling staff to continue as they would normally; 

1.     Communication

It is important at this stage to remain approachable to staff and ensure you’re continuing to communicate with them, especially if you have people working from home. Individuals may be anxious to discuss this with you as their employer, so it is important to remain open and understanding, in order them to let you know what is involved during this time. 

2.     Flexible Working

Employees during this time may require some adjustments to their working day in order to help them fulfil the needs of Ramadan. This could include changing shift patterns if that is applicable, or allowing people to start and finish earlier to coincide with Ramadan and help with daytime fasting. Adjusting duties may reduce the chance of fatigue impacting performance. These may all be more difficult to do given the current circumstances, however it’s probably more important now to agree what measures can be implemented. 

3.     Annual Leave

Some employees may request to take annual leave to allow them sufficient time to rest. This might be difficult for an organisation to accommodate given the current circumstances, and if furloughed, then you need to make up the additional 20% of the job retention scheme fund, as annual leave should be paid in full. If this is going to be difficult for you, can you come to an agreement on what can be agreed and what can be taken i.e. maybe a few days annual leave as opposed to a whole week? I have stressed the importance of you as employers being creative over the last 6 weeks. Work to agree something between you and an employee and don’t just have a straight decline to a question. These are extraordinary circumstances and we’re all learning to work differently. 

4.     Harassment

Muslim employees are at an increased risk of suffering religious harassment during Ramadan due to the changes to their roles that may be temporarily accepted. Other employees may feel this is unfair and therefore harass unnecessarily those who are taking part in Ramadan. It is your duty as an employer to dispel any notion of “special privileges” and make very clear that any tone of harassment will not be tolerated. There is a very fine line between “banter” and bullying/harassment. This is something all employers will struggle with at some point but it is so important, again now more than ever, where you may have people working remotely, to stay on top of issues like this.

5.     Policy 

Do you have a policy in place to support religious festivities? It may be within your Staff Handbook, or if you don’t have one of those, a separate policy on it’s own? If not, now is the time to get one in place and set out clear guidelines on the measures you put in place to support staff who are part of particular religious festivities and times of the year.