I read recently of someone working in the Thai Embassy who loved her job, not least because as well as being given British Public Holidays (some of which were Christian religious festivals) she was also given Thai public holidays. Imagine the appeal that that would have if legislation were introduced into the UK to grant people holidays for every religious festival celebrated by every religion in the country (in the spirit of multicultural equality).
With Britain being a secular country (despite official, historical trappings of Christianity), and with the official religious holidays of Christmas and Easter having reverted back to their pagan and pre-Christian roots for the vast majority, you could make a case for abandoning the notion of religious holidays altogether and for just having public holidays. However, with the rise of strong religious commitments to other faiths, you could argue that their festivals could be marked with a celebratory day off. Already Muslim leaders have used a summit with the then Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly to call for their two main religious festivals - Ramadan and Eid-ul-Adha - to be made public holidays.
I doubt that, in the near future, anyone will be courageous enough to formally abandon Christian festivals or recognise other faiths in additional national days off work. However, I was intrigued by recent proposals by Ed Balls in the Department for Children, Schools and Families, to allow his staff to have diverse public holidays. His civil servants will be able to take bank holidays on the religious days of their choice under moves to introduce “cultural flexitime”. Officials will be allowed to work from home on statutory days off and take the time owed to mark their own religious traditions.
Ten percent of the department’s 2,600 staff are from ethnic minorities. For the first time this year staff will be able to work at home on Christmas Day and swap it for a different religious festival such as Eid or Diwali. Staff will be able to switch all eight statutory days off, including all Christian and secular bank holidays. And staff choosing to swap bank holidays for other key dates will not be required to prove that they follow a different faith.
From a management perspective there are clearly issues about ensuring that work is done at home on compulsory public holidays if time is going to be claimed back in lieu. Equally, any manager will want to make sure that there are sufficient staff at work on any particular day guarantee adequate coverage. But given these two provisos, the scheme does seem enlightened in showing recognition that the workforce does have different needs.
In addition to allowing Hindus to celebrate Diwali, Sihks to celebrate the birth of the prophets, Muslims to mark Eid-ul-Adha and Ramadan, and allowing Jews to take time off for Yom Kippur or Hanukkah, followers of minority religions such as paganism, Baha’i and Zoroastrianism could also be accommodated. The pioneering arrangements also apply to cultural traditions, meaning a Welsh employee could move a bank holiday to St David’s Day, or an English one could choose to mark St George’s Day on April 23.
Although it is possible to conjure up strange possible logical outcomes for such a move, there seems to be no good reason why they could not be accommodated without any real loss to the service, because of the swapping arrangement that would operate. Doubtless it won’t be too long before some Conservative wants to choose to celebrate a Lady Thatcher Day instead of May Day, or before someone claims that she or he is a Jedi and therefore wants May the Fourth (be with you) off.
Given the minefield of different cultures and religions, cultural flexitime seems a very good way defusing a problem by giving back people more control over how they use their time.
[...] See also: Holiday Diversity [...]