In wake of Supreme Court's Groff ruling, how to accommodate religion at work.

• Author: Davenport, Anniken

On June 29, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in Groff v. DeJoy that employers must accommodate employees' religious practices and beliefs unless doing so creates an undue hardship. It defined undue hardship to mean the accommodation would result in "substantial increased cost in relation to the conduct of an employer's particular business."

The decision upended 47 years of religious accommodation law. The prior definition of undue hardship only required employers to show the accommodation would result in more than a de minimis cost--a light burden that led many employers to deny workers' accommodation requests.

Now, employers must revamp their religious accommodation process or risk litigation.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, employers must reasonably accommodate religious practices such as the need to attend religious services or groom themselves and dress in accordance with their religion.

"Religion" is defined expansively. Organized religions like Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism are covered, but so are other sincerely held religious, ethical or moral belief systems, including agnosticism and atheism, as well as Druid, Wicca and Native American beliefs.

New accommodation rules

In Groff, the Supreme Court wrestled with how far the U.S. Postal Service had to go to let a postal employee skip working Sunday shifts when coworkers quit volunteering to fill in for him. After 20 missed Sundays, Groff's supervisor told him his accommodation was being discontinued. Groff sued, alleging failure to show that giving him every Sunday off created an undue burden.

The Supreme Court said the post office had to show that giving Groff every Sunday off substantially increased the costs it incurred. It provided examples of hardships that generally would not create such a burden, including temporary costs, voluntary or occasional shift swapping or administrative costs.

That leaves...