Ask a Manager--Husband Won't Let Wife Travel

[December]

What a creepy scenario. Hopefully, it's just a troll. 

On 3/27/2017 at 10:16 AM, Howl said:

The response from lawyers consulted by Ask A Manager is scary -- basically saying that the law is so murky that anytime someone says  'Sincerely held religious belief', every body takes a shit and lies down in it*. 

 

It's scary how far that excuse can extend. If it's in the job requirements, and someone isn't willing to meet those, then it's not the job for them. No travel isn't some easily fixed issue like someone needing to swap a shift once in a while to attend a religious service, etc.

[Howl]

Texas is attempting to put in place a raft of religious prejudice/Christian diescrimination laws masquerading as "sincerely held religious belief" laws during the current legislative session.  Of course these are all for the benefit of "Christians" who want to manifest their personal hatred of LBGTs or Jews or Muslims by legally treating them in demeaning ways.

Our current Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick ran on a platform of  
"Christian first, Conservative second and Republican third".

To clarify, the Lieutenant Governor in Texas is, in some ways, a more powerful position than Governor.  

Under the provisions of the Texas Constitution, the Lieutenant Governor is President of the Texas Senate. By the rules of the Senate, the Lieutenant Governor establishes all special and standing committees, appoints all chairpersons and members, and assigns all Senate legislation to the committee of his choice.

A hard core religious conservative like Patrick can do a lot of damage in a short period of time. 

These laws, of course, will be challenged all the way to the Supreme Court, which is probably the point. 

[crawfishgirl]

I worked in Employee Relations for many years (though I have been out of it for about 5 years now), and we had a few similar issues with religious accommodations.  We were guided by our in-house employment attorneys to look into whether it was truly a tenet of the employee's religion or not.  For instance, some people can't work late on Fridays due to religious observances, and that could usually be proven, so we would attempt to accommodate it.  I remember one lady wanted to get off early on a different day of the week because she wanted to attend a bible study, but it wasn't accommodated because it wasn't a tenet of her religion that she had to attend one every week on that day.  From the few facts we have of this case, I'd say it would be difficult to prove it's really a religious tenet, but with the travel being limited to one night a quarter, it would be hard to prove that it's really an essential function anyway, so it would be easier to accommodate a non-essential function.  I've found some employees just don't like to travel, while others like a change and enjoy getting away for a day or two, so that might not be difficult to accommodate, except that they pay for travel which causes the others to want addl pay.  I can't imagine they would get much addl pay for traveling once a quarter.

I remember that the majority of the accommodation requests that my department dealt with were disability-related.  Once telecommuting became viable in many areas, the number of cases increased, and some people would state that telecommuting was the only possible accommodation that they would accept and that nothing else could ever remotely be possible.  Whenever an employee would start from that position, we would question it.  

We had one situation where an employee wanted intermittent fmla to take her elderly father to the doctor on a regular basis.  She submitted the proper paperwork, but when the HR leave coordinator reviewed the doctor's portion, it was noticed that the doctor was an obstetrician.   Since obstetricians don't normally provide care to elderly men, it was funny.  To make a long story short, it had been falsified.

Most managers and employees are reasonable, and they work out these types of issues among themselves.  It's only when one side is being unreasonable that it gets escalated to HR.  Since I worked for a large company, we dealt with these types of issues on a daily basis.  It was interesting, but tiring.  And I saw both sides lie and whine, which is one of the reasons I became so burned-out.

[Maggie Mae]

3 minutes ago, crawfishgirl said:

 I remember one lady wanted to get off early on a different day of the week because she wanted to attend a bible study, but it wasn't accommodated because it wasn't a tenet of her religion that she had to attend one every week on that day.

My company wouldn't care if it was religious or a tenet or what. We've found that it's in our best interest to allow flexible scheduling for our employees. The younger employees are much more interested in life/work balance, and letting them come in early and leave early or come in later and skip lunch makes for happier employers. Some of the boomers complain, but it's easy to remind them that no one has said they HAVE to skip lunch and stay late, that they choose to do it and they are also welcome to discuss schedule changes to accommodate their personal needs and wants. 

[crawfishgirl]

51 minutes ago, Maggie Mae said:

My company wouldn't care if it was religious or a tenet or what. We've found that it's in our best interest to allow flexible scheduling for our employees. The younger employees are much more interested in life/work balance, and letting them come in early and leave early or come in later and skip lunch makes for happier employers. Some of the boomers complain, but it's easy to remind them that no one has said they HAVE to skip lunch and stay late, that they choose to do it and they are also welcome to discuss schedule changes to accommodate their personal needs and wants. 

I agree in most cases.  The company I was working for had many call centers with contracted coverage numbers and stats, which is why scheduling was such an issue.  It wasn't as big an issue in the other areas of the company.  I'm so glad I no longer work there. 

[Mercer]

9 hours ago, Maggie Mae said:

My company wouldn't care if it was religious or a tenet or what. We've found that it's in our best interest to allow flexible scheduling for our employees. The younger employees are much more interested in life/work balance, and letting them come in early and leave early or come in later and skip lunch makes for happier employers. Some of the boomers complain, but it's easy to remind them that no one has said they HAVE to skip lunch and stay late, that they choose to do it and they are also welcome to discuss schedule changes to accommodate their personal needs and wants. 

I agree with this in theory, but in practice how possible it is varies wildly between different employers.

At my workplace, we do our best to accommodate employee requests, but the bottom line is that we're essential workers who have to provide supervision for vulnerable people 24/7, and if there's no one else who can cover the time, unfortunately the scheduled employee is just going to have to suck it up and work their shift. I've been on the receiving end of that plenty of times, and it stinks, but the most important thing is we can't neglect our residents.

Flexibility is preferable, but in some workplaces coverage gaps simply can't happen. We can generally accommodate an hour or two here or there, but there's no guarantee of it.

 

[Lurky]

I am severely addicted to Ask A Manager, the blog giving all sorts of advice on work dilemmas of all kinds.

A while back, Alison had this question, from the manager of a woman who wouldn't go on business trips because her husband didn't like it.

http://www.askamanager.org/2017/03/my-employee-is-refusing-to-travel-because-her-husband-said-she-cant.html

Well, there's an update, and it's kind of good news for the manager, eventually, but I read it and thought of FJ....

http://www.askamanager.org/2017/10/update-my-employee-is-refusing-to-travel-because-her-husband-said-she-cant.html

 

 

[GeoBQn]

Here's a link to the discussion of the original post:

The update makes the wife sound a lot less sympathetic, though I wouldn't be surprised if there was some emotional manipulation or brainwashing that went into her becoming more religious.  I got a chuckle out of the part where she responds to deadlines by saying, "If G-d allows it."

[Lurky]

20 minutes ago, GeoBQn said:

I got a chuckle out of the part where she responds to deadlines by saying, "If G-d allows it."

That was completely amazing, in all the wrong ways!

[Jug Band Baby]

On 3/28/2017 at 5:54 AM, VodouDoll said:

If her belief is sincere they have to accommodate it if they can, and it sounds like they can, since they are.

I think that it's reasonable accommodations, not "if they can."  Anybody's limitations can be accommodated by hiring a second person to shadow that person, and do what they can't or won't.  I have a friend with colitis whose bowels are so out of control that she can be okay in the morning, and at 10, be in the bathroom for the next few hours.  It wasn't reasonable for her medical disability to be accommodated since they needed her job done, and it got to the point that they'd need to hire another person.  The company could have paid her and the other person, but it wasn't reasonable.  She had to leave her job and has a disabiity claim it.  

A religious example is if, for instance, a Muslim worked on the factory line in a manufacturing plant, and needed time to pray 5x a day, but each time he was away would cause the line to shut down unless another person was hired to wait around to do that person's job while he was away praying.  The employer doesn't have to accommodate that since what would be required isn't reasonable.  I read about a case that was exactly this.  I think it was a car-manufacturing plant.  

And an old friend of mine was a bartender who converted to Mormonism, took the belief that alcohol is evil (far above and beyond any Mormon I've ever known), and wouldn't serve alcohol anymore.  Instead of hiring another bartender to mix the alcohol while she made Shirley Temples and poured water, she had the choice of doing her job, quitting, or being fired.  She ended up fired and pissed that her unemployment claim was rejected since she was fired for legal cause.  A bunch of mutual friends and I stopped being friends with her because we couldn't handle hearing anymore about how she was so discriminated against because she was fired from a job that had the primary function of serving something she came to believe was wrong to serve.

And a clinic wouldn't be required to keep an abortion doctor who converted to fundamentalism and refused to do abortions anymore.  They wouldn't be expected to hire a back-up doctor.

Just because a place can accommodate doesn't always mean they have to.  

On 3/31/2017 at 12:30 PM, December said:

No travel isn't some easily fixed issue like someone needing to swap a shift once in a while to attend a religious service, etc.

My husband has to travel.  Because of the nature of his position, sending other people wouldn't work well.  He has the knowledge and experience in a couple of specialty areas that others in the company don't have.  Anybody else going in his place would mean the point of the travel couldn't be done right.  He usually travels 1x-2x per year.

Sometimes it's easy to swap an employee, sometimes it's not.  Sometimes the travel is continued training for an employee, even if it's 1 night a quarter.

[KnittingOwl]

On 10/19/2017 at 10:22 AM, Lurky said:

Well, there's an update, and it's kind of good news for the manager, eventually, but I read it and thought of FJ....

http://www.askamanager.org/2017/10/update-my-employee-is-refusing-to-travel-because-her-husband-said-she-cant.html

 

 

Someone in the comments made a reference to the Duggars, and another poster replied with the FJ site. \