To send an employee to a client even though she refuses because of her religion?

[GelatinousDynamo]

I have a new employee in my team, she is a devout Muslim. She's been with us since January and there were no issues so far, she's getting along well with everyone and her performance was fine. I sent her an email on Friday afternoon to say that our client has now (finally) prepared all necessary documents and that she should go there and go over everything with them one day next week. She wrote me back today that she can't do that because only men work in the department and she can't spend the day alone with strange men (because of her religion).

AIBU to insist that she does her job and goes there or would that be religious discrimination? She shares an office with a male colleague and has never complained about it. She's the first devout Muslim I've ever had on my team and I honestly have no experience at all with such issues. She's the only one who has the necessary experience and isn't already scheduled elsewhere.

You aren't

Firstly, one of my favorite application & interview questions is -
Is there any reason you could not perform all the duties required for this job?

This has weeded out vegan childminder who would not prepare meat, a person who did not want to miss the 5:09 train (because husband didn’t want her to be late for dinner), a person who would not have client meetings with pharmaceutical companies because of her views etc

You would not need to have said this job requires you to meet with men, but if she cannot meet with men, then you could have not offered or if she took job, then stated it, then you have it in her application.

Given that she had not mentioned it, then confirm with her via email. Dear X, just confirming that you are not able to attend ABC meeting insert her exact words about men but not religion. Let her respond with that.

Each time there is a meeting in future, ask her to attend as you would anyone (in writing) so you have her responses in writing.

It might be that over time, she contributes as much as peers. But if she doesn’t, and she complains, you can say.
Ms T, your peer, has been able to attend & close 26 client meetings this year contributing ££££
You have been able to attend and close 7. Contributing £

Ms T is getting promoted to recognize her contribution to expanding business etc

Another view, which I cannot help but raise, is that there are men that she is discriminating against as well. Like if she won’t meet with an internal colleague …
They can claim discrimination against her.

My best advice is follow up every conversation with carefully worded email & keep.
Time will sort this out, the longer you wait, the more evidence you have that you treated her fairly and she fails to meet performance of others by her not accepting male colleagues.

As a company, your goal is to say, we treated her fairly, invited her & she declined. We cannot tell clients to exclude men as that is illegal. She has had every opportunity but turned down meetings.

She just needs a chaperone, crikey is it that had to facilitate in 2025? Or they can meet in public coffee shop, hotel lobby eyc

There's some seriously crap advice here.

If you fail her probation you need to tell her why. If you avoid the extant issue do you really think she wont do 2+2=4?

OP needs advice. That's what HR, ACAS etc are there for.

Ask her how she intends to complete the project, put the onus back on her to complete her job within the constricts of her religion. This is her problem to solve.

She is a liability and going forward there will only be more issues. People like her lie by omission to get roles and expect the whole world to work round them. Take advice from HR as to how you can manage her out of the business. Definitely don't mention her religion to HR. They have to document things too. Stick the issue being that it being difficult to do that role with out doing that part of the job. I would also ask them to advise you on what you can and can't say when talking to her and how you document your conversations. This can be a minefield. Edited for clarity

You can’t refuse to work with half the population!. She’s being very unreasonable as long as she was aware that in person client meetings were part of her role

Why can’t the work be done online? Does it involve personal care?

What would have happened during lockdown?

You definitely need HR advice here.

She’ll take you to the cleaners at tribunal as religion is a protected characteristic. She knows what she’s doing. Has she had many different jobs in the past 5 years or so? Could be a lucrative little earner for her.

Absolutely, and make sure they know their stuff. I think sacking her for this if she's otherwise doing a good job would be discrimination.

I know some devout Muslims through my son's friends and the husband would never come to the door as he would be "alone" with me and the wife was uncomfortable if my husband dropped my son off at the door etc and wouldn't be allowed in the house if she was the only adult.

Is there any way round it eg could another female colleague attend, could it be held virtually on Teams, could she swap jobs with another colleague? Reasonable adjustments should be offered

A chaperone? Is this 1825?!

It’s obviously the OP’s own business
and there is no HR
because sadly the OP is HR

I used to work at a Jewish company in the 1990s. In winter, the Orthodox Jewish staff used to go home at lunchtime on Fridays and make up the time on Sundays or on other days of the week.

Are you sure this is true? The law is clear that you cannot refuse to provide a service on the grounds of the recipient’s protected characteristic ( such as being male). Services such as women’s refuges, need special legal exemptions to do this.

Well to save you the hassle, I asked chat gpt if a devout female woman could spend the day working in an all male office

@Dahlin it's a sorry state of affairs if we're relying on Chat GPT to resolve issues like this. Not be long now until people are incapable of thinking for themselves.

The job needs to be done for the benefit of the company.
Employer can make reasonable accommodations. Can you think of any that would be workable? And that she would accept?

It would not seem unreasonable to ask her what accommodations would be workable to her so you can consider if they are workable for the business. If she says none, except not going when attending in person is essential then HR needs to consider if she actually has the capability to do the job, but it needs careful consideration.

Others have suggested a chaperone but I imagine that is problematic for the company in that they'll be paying another employee to twiddle their thumbs just being present somewhere they wouldn't normally be. Would it be acceptable to your company and the client if she brought her own chaperone such as a relative? That wouldn't work in my industry for confidentiality reasons but it might work for yours. It would also put some onus on her to help solve the problem instead of saying nope, can't do that.

Did she appreciate that working on this project required her to attend their offices. If so it's poor show that she's only mentioning it now that all the prep is done.

If you can make reasonable adjustments make them. If you can't, tell her there are no other options and why, ask her if she is willing to reconsider (without telling her she has to).

Either way discuss with HR as soon as possible, outlining the issues it is going to cause your department and ask for advice on how to handle going forward.

Be very careful..my autistic sons was asked to move seats at college because a Muslim girl needed to sit down and wasn't allowed next to a boy..he nearly got the police called on him because he took umbrage to this and voiced his upset to his counsellor about it

While that’s all well and good. Employers will see that as a utter waste of time and money for the other employee versus simply hiring a) non devout Muslim or b) any man.

in a role where she is out in the world , ensuring that she is never potentially left alone with a male client is usually simply unworkable.

Why did he take umbrage to this?

Her needs are her own to accommodate. She should’ve chosen another job.

Because he was asked to move for sexist reasons very outdated in 2025?

Thank you everyone for your input (although it's hard to keep up with all the questions).

She covers her hair, but does not wear a burka or anything. She's in a technical field, so, sadly, her main points of contact on any project will usually be men. She's told me she quit her previous company because they wouldn't assign her to the prestigious jobs, and now I'm wondering if this might have been the reason why.

We do have HR, but we're not a huge company with endless resources, so would probably have to seek outside counsel.

It's not that easy to "just send her with someone else" - we get paid by the hour, and the client does not expect to have to pay for another person just because a senior I'm sending him is uncomfortable with men.

For sexist reasons? What do you mean?

It’s absolute disgraceful that this is being put forward as a solution in the UK in 2025.