Do employers need to provide leave for religious and cultural holidays?

Australia is one of the most culturally and religiously diverse countries in the world. Last year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that over 7.6 million migrants were living in Australia and 29.8 per cent of our population was born overseas. Nearly every single country was represented in Australia’s population in 2020 and this is also reflected in our workplaces too.

Workplaces across Australia celebrate their diversity and significant cultural differences, however, not all religious and cultural holidays are recognised as public holidays in Australia. Employers need to be mindful that employees may wish to celebrate culturally important or religious days and events throughout the year such as Lunar New Year, Diwali, Ramadan, and Hanukkah. Flexibility during these periods of cultural or religious significance may be needed. Embracing celebrations from all cultures and religious beliefs not only benefits the business in terms of increased job satisfaction, workplace morale, and productivity but also each employee. In this article, we’ll discuss employer obligations when it comes to religious and cultural holidays and how employers can be inclusive of staff from diverse backgrounds.

What are your obligations as an employer?

There isn’t a requirement for employers to provide additional leave for employees due to religious or cultural holidays. However, employers can expect that employees may wish to take leave to celebrate them. In this regard, employers must remember religious discrimination in the workplace is illegal. Refusing an employee’s leave request for a religious holiday can be considered a breach of their workplace rights and anti-discrimination provisions under both the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) and state and federal discrimination laws.

Employers should provide reasonable accommodations to employees who wish to fulfil their religious obligations – like taking the day off for a holiday relating to their faith. It’s best practice to approve leave employees’ requests when it’s to observe cultural or religious holidays. It’s also unlawful for an employer to unreasonably refuse an employee’s request for annual leave.

How can an employer support this?

Recognising and embracing diversity in the workplace won’t only show your employees that they’re valued team members, but it’s also a great way to cultivate culture, improve employee engagement and increase productivity.

Employers can support the needs of employees participating in cultural or religious holidays by:

• Agreeing with employees to use leave entitlements to take time off work (annual leave or leave without pay).
• Acknowledging or celebrating these holidays in the workplace to promote awareness and inclusion.
• Agreeing to flexible working arrangements, such as a change to hours, patterns, or locations of work to accommodate the holiday.

Employers may also consider implementing workplace policies including a diversity policy that outlines a business’s commitment to anti-discrimination in the workplace, and a leave policy to mandate how employees must request leave.

HR policies are a simple way to ensure your business is well-equipped to handle common workplace issues. Inside of Citation HR’s software solution has all the above HR policies and more. Better yet, Citation HR’s Workplace Relations Specialists will draft tailored HR Policies to suit your unique business needs.