Every employer is familiar with the need to walk a delicate line when addressing prayer in the workplace. How can employees lead a productive religious life without sapping a company's productivity? Trusting workers to monitor themselves is important, but it doesn't hurt to remind anyone that working hard is also a virtue.
Everything stops. It's midday on a weekday. From workplaces across the country, the faint voice of a muezzin can be heard calling salat al dhuhr, the afternoon prayers. Workers gather but only after the ablution required before any prayer during which worshippers wash the face, hands and arms up to the elbows, then pass their hands lightly over their heads and wash their feet up to the ankles. The concept, as written in the Qur'an, is to be pure when approaching God in prayer.
Sherif Samy, chairman of Skill-Link.com, an internet-based job search and career advice provider, describes a scene that has become familiar in many workplaces.
"Imagine at least 50 or 60 percent of the workplace having to go to the bathroom at the same time to perform their ablutions. It's a bit messy, especially if you don't have your towels. Then they have to wait for each other, which by default is a slower process than if you're praying on your own. Then they go back to work. All this time, moving to elevators, or stairs, to the bathroom, to prayer, chatting after the prayer, it's only human," he says.
In the end, a process that can take an individual no more than 15 minutes can take up to 30 or 40 minutes.
It may be a bit messy, as Samy suggests, but more and more workplaces are finding the need for creative solutions to make room for God in the workplace. There is no debating whether prayer should be allowed. Followers of any religion consider it a privilege and a right to serve God in this way. And now, more than ever, people worldwide are searching for spiritual enlightenment. What complicates this trend is that it is taking place as work demands more time and energy from us than ever before.
As with any activity that takes place at work, it all boils down to the concept of time management, and how employers can encourage a healthy balance between productive work practices and the need for religious fulfillment.
"Supposedly, if a person works for eight hours, he will have a break," says Al-Azhar scholar Sheikh Khaled El-Guindy. "In theory, that person will use this break for eating and al dhuhr prayer. Al 'asr [afternoon] prayer can be done at home, that's not a problem. So in this half-hour break, he is able to eat, pray, do whatever he wants."
The experience seems to vary from person to person. "Maybe in some places, the productivity point is not really emphasized," says Samar Shams El Din, recruitment specialist at Skill-Link, who tries to be aware of the clock when he goes to pray. "We say, 'You guys, let's finish because we all have to go to finish our work.' We don't really waste much time."
Looking within
"There is a very strong work ethic in Islam," says Madiha El-Safty, professor of sociology at the American University in Cairo (AUC). "Because people go to pray, this doesn't mean that you spend long hours away from work during that time. This is the understanding that should be communicated people go to pray then come right back to resume their work."
Prayer, as it is practiced publicly today in Egypt, has been somewhat redefined in the last 35 years, following what some categorize as an "Islamic awakening." The original movement was, many believe, a reaction and rejection of Western ideals and mores. While religious devotion now spans a broader band of the social spectrum, the poorer classes have historically been more fervent.
"We've always been Muslims and there's nothing new. It's just that there has been a kind of resurgence of Islam or something like that," El-Safty explains. "We need to be careful about how we practice Islam and how we seek it and see it as some kind of help with the increasing problems that we are facing."
This resurgence, scholars say, was triggered by a number of events in recent history. After the secular, pan-Arab movement peaked on the eve of the 1967 war against Israel, it was replaced with a more religious conception of self and society, at least here in Egypt. The Islamic revolution in Iran in the late 1970s arguably sparked an intense passion for Islam, and time will tell if the more recent intifada in Palestine will have a similar effect in galvanizing the population under the banner of Islam.
More and more women have taken on the hijab, making it a fashionable norm, not an exception. Many younger Muslims have continued to show a growing interest in movements that seek alternative solutions to globalization.
"So that movement actually has come to affect all aspects of our lives, and with that has come prayer in the workplace; establishing certain places for prayer, what is known as zawya, or corners for prayer in universities, workplaces, all places actually, so that people can have a place to pray when the call for prayer is made," says El-Safty.
Samy offers a more naturalistic explanation. "Egypt is an agricultural society, so we are slow in things," he says. "We did not get the tempo of an industrial society and that reflects on our prayer habits, our work habits, our Ramadan habits people staying up late in the middle of the week."
Still, some worry about a tendency for workers to stray from another facet of religious instruction: to work diligently. "I feel that there is a problem with most of the Egyptians to take work seriously," says El- Guindy. "A blessing isn't granted upon those who neglect the work that is required from them because he wants to pray and leave his boss. On the contrary, I would say he should pray the fard [or imperative] prayer as opposed to the extra sunna prayer so that he can finish quickly and go back to his work."
"Prayer in the workplace goes both ways," says Samy. "There are environments in corporate Egypt where there is so much social pressure to go and pray, to gather at the time of prayer. Employees who do not comply with this tend to feel out of the gang, or the group, or the network."
It's a common sight, says Samy. Throngs of employees in high-end buildings across Cairo line their rugs side by side in military fashion, often blocking rotundas or hallways during prayer time. "Everybody must join not must by order, but by social pressure," he says.
Is such a scene incongruous in the corporate world?
"Islam says you have to be productive, but you have to pray at the same time. So you reconcile these two," says El-Safty. "You go to pray, then you come back and finish your work. This is not against Islam but the question is, how long?"
"Prayer should take 15 minutes maximum," El-Guindy believes. "If someone wants to worship God, you do it on your own time, not on the time of others."
"I can't spend 15 minutes praying and 45 minutes chatting with my friends," says Shams El Din. "It doesn't work. But this takes place. You have to admit it. OK, sometimes we get carried away and we chat. But you control it."
Rushing off to pray
There is some argument about when exactly prayers should be observed. According to Sheikh El-Guindy and many Islamic moderates, salat al dhuhr and al 'asr offer a three-hour window for worshipers to pray. The call to prayer, therefore, should serve more as a reminder than an immediate summons to cease all activity.
This is particularly relevant for salat al 'asr, often called near the end of the work day, and whether there is good cause for someone working the normal 9 to 5 schedule to pray it at work, when actually it can be done at home. "Some people come very early and leave late because they have a hundred things to do, and others follow it by the book and never account for the half hour or 20 minutes you invested in prayer. If you are religious and do things by the book, why come at nine and leave at five sharp if you know a half hour or whatever is wasted? Show me you can accommodate it by coming early and leaving late," Samy says.
His view seems to have been readily accepted by those who work for him. "You have to pray but you have to make sure this doesn't affect your other duties in life," says Nermaine Moussa, Skill-Link's operations manager. "It's essential to have a balance between your religious background and your duties and to do your part of the job. If you do not do the part that God asks you to do, then you will not be as productive as you may think."
"Religion is not entirely a social image or professional image anymore in many places," Samy believes. "It depends on who is looking at it. Religion is something beyond everything in most people's minds."
Sheikh El-Guindy says that the real reward comes in doing a good job. "Those who want to worship God should rise up to their work responsibilities, because they are completing the requests of other people and succeeding in the work that is requested of them, and then prayer is a reward," he says.
Many faithful would agree that prayer, when practiced efficiently, is the best investment of time. If the privilege is abused, however, it can be perceived as a time waster.
Still, according to Samy, prayer is not top on the list of workplace 'distractions.' "Prayer for me is number three," he explains. "We have to look at it in this context. It's not an un-religious thing as much as it is that in the workplace, you should work as much as possible."
Electronic devices, Samy says, are the greatest source of distraction to the workforce. "E-mail, chat, even the mobiles are the number one destroyer of productivity and attention in the workplace. These are across the board, all age groups and genders." He explains that such distractions increase the chances of human error, from wrongly-forwarded e-mails or messages ignored.
After electronic devices, Samy says, the next greatest distraction is "social chit-chatting."
Naturally, there are other distractions. A person who chooses to spend time praying at work is no different than those who must incessantly leave the office for cigarette breaks. Still, from an economic standpoint, prayer is no different from cigarettes or e-mailing or chit-chatting. They are all activities that have the potential to take away from a productive workday.
Public and private prayers
As siesta is a way of life in Spain, so is prayer in Egypt. It is culturally inherent. It is practiced without argument. It is often supported and encouraged. So, when time is money especially in the private sector there are money-driven pressures against praying without ceasing.
"In some places in the public sector, the hours for prayer are too lengthy. People might go to pray for a long time," El-Safty believes. "There is more concern [about prayer] in the private sector because employers are more concerned with productivity time is money and these are concerns of the private sector more than the public sector."
Private sector companies, even in the Middle East, are built on a Western-based business culture. Religion, as a practiced, public display is for the most part not really welcomed. But there are limits to such a model here. Executives would be risking their reputation, or worse, losing the confidence of their workforce by turning their back on something as sacred to their employees as religion.
The public sector is a different case. There is more pressure, in a sense, to be included come prayer time. "By default, civil service and government is slower, not delivery-oriented," says Samy. "People are not paid adequately so they try to come with all the perks they can come up with. One of them is being slow and relaxing. It reflects in many things, such as the time we spend in prayer, or in chatting, or in discussions, or in socializing."
Companies wouldn't go as far as restricting prayer publicly, El-Safty says, but they can keep employees from being away from the office for too long, or make sure they make up for lost time.
While almost all companies in Egypt, large or small, tread carefully on the issue of religion, analysts agree it is the private sector that tends to be a bit less tolerant on issues of time management. "You can say prayers are to be restricted to a certain time or location, but to tell someone not to pray no, you can't." Samy insists.
A foot in the door
Incorporating religion into an otherwise secular business environment may cause even the most qualified HR executives to pause in describing how religion can complement their management techniques. In recent years, a sense of political correctness has swept through offices across the world, perhaps most pervasively in the United States.
The constant pressure to accommodate religion, both socially and professionally, is testing the orthodoxy of separating religion from the public sphere. Equal opportunity has become the new religion of the business world, allowing traditional religion to get a foot in the door.
According to a recent survey conducted by the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding in the United States, two-thirds of Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Jews say they have either witnessed or experienced some form of religious bias or prejudice in their workplace. Disturbingly, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist respondents not only said they have experienced religious discrimination, but they also expect it.
To combat prejudice and essentially raise awareness, uniforms are being adapted to accommodate women wearing the hijab. Most apparent, however, is the availability of multi-denominational prayer rooms in some of the major companies. Many new companies plan in advance that the room be made available. This accommodation, in essence, is key in building strong ties between a company and employee, as it allows employees to bring to work something they cherish at home.
Egyptian companies and businesses are making accommodations of their own. Some of the major conferences are now scheduling their agendas around salat al dhuhr, offering a quick break that enables participants the chance to pray without having to leave the meeting.
"This is recent. You look at the schedule for any conference here and it's accommodating the prayer hours," AUC's El-Safty says.
Most controversial is the availability of a zawya. Many companies are moving away from having employees pray in public passages, such as hallways and rotundas, to prevent rows of worshippers from clogging up work space.
"It's an organization issue, a bad system," says Sheikh El-Guindy. "Islam rejects that worship should interfere with work and the movement in life. It should be that on every floor there is a prayer room. If they cannot have it on every floor, they should be spread equally in the building. But to have it all in one place will cause too big of a crowd. This will delay the people and delay the work. This is something we reject in Islam."
"Remember, there should be people and clients of other beliefs," says Samy. "But you'll find it in many places, whether government or private the fact that you might not even be able to step into the room due to the number of people praying at once."
"Almost everywhere, every workplace, every university has accommodated this corner or zawya, because of the increasing number of Muslims that try to stick to the prayer times," El-Safty says. "We've always been praying, but this fact that you pray in the workplace is relatively recent."
"The best way to handle this is you have to convey a good message to others," Moussa suggests. "You have to be professional, you have to do a good job, be presentable and up to standards academically, professionally, education wise. Then you'll set a good example. At the same time, we are Muslims and we must follow the rules that God made for us."
"It's a culture thing, not that people pray, but that people insist and go through an elaborate process of prayer ceremony that takes a half hour, even though people can do it in small rooms and small groups," says Samy, who argues that employees should not let their prayer schedule dictate their work. "Logic says, 'I'm working on a paper, or a report of a phone call, or a meeting when I finish I will go pray.' Not, 'Why should I start it now? Because prayer is starting.'"
"It shouldn't be an obsession a built-in clock telling you when it's time to pray," Samy insists. "At the end of the day, let's be more productive."
Vivian Salama
© Business Today Egypt 2004
