Handling an employee who refuses to celebrate

Huh ... I posed a hypothetical question in Keep the Joint Running and got a slew of answers. The question: How to handle the situation when employees like to celebrate each others' birthdays but you have a Jehovah's Witness on staff who considers the custom sacreligious.Most correspondents advised the reasonable approach of volunteerism and tolerance - make sure to avoid embarrassing the individual by not celebr

Huh ... I posed a hypothetical question in Keep the Joint Running and got a slew of answers. The question: How to handle the situation when employees like to celebrate each others' birthdays but you have a Jehovah's Witness on staff who considers the custom sacreligious.

Most correspondents advised the reasonable approach of volunteerism and tolerance - make sure to avoid embarrassing the individual by not celebrating his/her birthday; make sure other employees understand to avoid pressuring anyone to participate who doesn't want to; but still allow the celebrations.

What this advice misses is that you might not know an employee is a Jehovah's Witness in the first place. Certainly, you aren't allowed to ask.

What you can do is quietly ask an employee who doesn't join the celebration why he or she doesn't join the festivities, explaining that in the absence of any other explanation they're likely to interpret what's going on as stand-offishness or unfriendliness. If the employee does then tell you, you have the opportunity to discuss with the employee how to best handle the social aspects of the situation. If not, then you still don't know the reason.

You can't solve everything, and maybe the employee isn't a member of a religious group that doesn't celebrate birthdays - he or she really is unfriendly and stand-offish. There are people like that, and if they still produce results it's up to you to help manage the team dynamics without intruding on their adult ability to make their own decisions.

- Bob