Description
Jewish Discussion Initial Post 1
How do you feel about Lisas request?
The concept of human rights has been at the center of different debates since the end of World War II. For many scholars, they are considered as inalienable rights that are inherent to a person. Tiedemann (2014) said that those rights must be directly reflected in the condition under which someone is recognized as a person with equal protection of his or her personhood. Aiming to increase the awareness of those rights throughout the world, in 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations (U.N.) adopted a solemn document called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As noted by Annas and George (1998), no other document has so caught the historical moment, achieved the same moral and rhetorical force, or exerted so much influence on the human rights movement. Among the different rights that are mentioned in this document, the right to freedom of religion is of particular importance. From that perspective, we can say that Lisas request must be welcome. It is a legitimate request because Lisa has the right to observe her religious practices without any fear.
How might this request be honored?
The case of Lisa revealed the importance of cultural competence in the workplace. Nowadays, considering the composition of modern societies with multiple cultures with different religious beliefs, the healthcare system of a country should not be composed of homogenous personnel. That is being said, diversity in the workplace must be the norm, especially when it comes to health care. Diversity in the workplace is important because it contributes to the organizations collective decision-making, effectiveness, and responsiveness to societal healthcare needs (Andrews & Boyle, 2016). Considering those advantages from workplace diversity, the request of Lisa must be honored accordingly. Then, the manager should be more considerate about Lisas request. He/she should see Lisas request as an opportunity to show respect to the culture of minority groups. He/she should honor Lisas request by allowing her to be off Friday and Saturday so she can practice her religious observances as dictated by her Jewish religion.
Was the supervisor culturally competent in this situation?
As the modern healthcare system is trying to incorporate the philosophy of cultural competency in the workplace, it is also necessary to envision some barriers that can prevent its application. One of those barriers to cultural competency is ethnocentrism. Andrews and Boyle (2016) defined it as a human tendency to view ones group as the center of and superior to all other groups. In other words, an ethnocentric is someone who thinks that his/her culture is more important than anyone elses culture. When ethnocentrism is manifested at work, no one cares about the cultural values and beliefs of their peer. However, if an organization wants to prosper, cultural competence must be the norm, but not an exception. It is considered as a complex integration of knowledge, attitudes, values, beliefs, behaviors, skills, practices, and cross-cultural interactions among staff from different backgrounds (Andrews & Boyle, 2016).
In the case of Lisa, we can boldly say that the supervisor was not culturally competent to appreciate the cultural values of Lisas beliefs. This supervisor was ethnocentric because his/her behavior showed no respect for Lisas cultural values. He/she used an alibi to reject the request of Lisa. He/she had no right to tell Lisa to go back to New Jersey where she could be more comfortable. It is not up to the supervisor to determine the best place for Lisa to work. Denying her right to practice her religious observances is not acceptable and showed that the supervisor was not culturally competent.
If Lisa were to discuss the issue at a team meeting, how could she present her concerns?
The best way for Lisa to present her concerns in the meeting is to show the leaders of the organization that her rights were violated and the tendency of the supervisor and the staff to deny her cultural values is not beneficial for the organization. As we can see from the case study, that tendency was the norm inside the organization because both the supervisor and the staff perceived Lisa as standoffish. Then, we can certainly conclude that the organization itself was not promoting cultural competence in its environment.
The second concern that Lisa could present in the meeting is her right to freedom of religion was violated. As a human being, Lisa has the right to work in an environment where her human rights are respected. One of the modern ethical theorists who gave a clear account of human rights is the British philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) who thought that human rights are permanent features of who we are (Fieser, 2011). Lisa must be seen as a Jewish employee with inalienable rights. Those rights are considered inalienable because they cannot be cast aside or given to someone else. They are inherent to human life. Violating those rights is like violating the dignity of human beings. Then, Lisa is a Jew, and she must be respected as a Jew.
The third concern that Lisa can point out in the meeting is the behavior of the supervisor and the staff that can be considered as discriminatory. In the workplace, it is not fair to discriminate against an employee based on his/her religious beliefs. That can jeopardize the reputation and benefits of the organization, can lead to bullying in the workplace, and have negative consequences in terms of healthcare outcomes for the patients. Then, those attitudes and practices must not be acceptable in any form.
What does EEOC say about honoring employees requests for time off for holidays?
To fight discriminatory attitudes in the workplace, legal actions were undertaken to establish anti-discrimination policies that can protect all employees. Among those policies, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) laws can never be overemphasized. In section 12 of the EEOC laws, the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was used as a reference to request that all employers reasonably accommodate the religious beliefs and practices of an employee unless doing that will cause hardship to the employer on the employers business conduct (EEOC, n.d). In the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is clearly stated that an employer is prohibited from discriminating because of religion in hiring, promotion, discharge, compensation, or other terms, conditions or privileges of employment, and also cannot limit, segregate, or classify applicants or employees based on religion in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee ( EEOC, n.d).
References
Andrews, M. M & Boyle, J. S. (2016). Transcultural concepts in nursing care (7th ed.). Wolters Kluwer
Annas, J., George, D. (1998). Human rights and health–the universal declaration of human rights at 50. The New England Journal of Medicine, 339(24), 1778-1781. Concept of Human Rights Discussion Response first appeared on Roaming Nurse.
