Ready for the Holidays? Stay Out of the Legal Hotseat With Time Off Requests

Quick Hits

• Workers who are Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist will mark religious celebrations in December 2025.
• Employers must grant valid religious accommodation requests unless it would impose a substantial burden on the business.
• In considering time off requests, employers balance business demands with legal obligations. Employees might ask for time off or breaks for religious observances or to complete prayers at designated times.

Typical religious accommodations during the holiday season include telework, flexible scheduling, shift adjustments or swapping, and exceptions to the dress code. One example of accommodating time off for religious reasons is when non-Christian employees agree to work on Christian holidays, or non-Jewish employees agree to work on Jewish holidays, allowing staffing levels to remain adequate for the business.

Some employees do not drink alcohol for religious reasons, so companies hosting holiday parties may want to make attendance voluntary and provide non-alcoholic beverages at the celebrations.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers are required to permit a valid religious accommodation request unless it would impose an undue hardship on the business. In 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Groff v. DeJoy that employers must show a substantial burden to justify denying a religious accommodation request. A minor expense, a minor inconvenience, or an employee’s dislike of an accommodation granted in favor of another coworker is not enough to show an undue hardship.

At the same time, many states have antidiscrimination laws with provisions similar to Title VII, which may be broader or require more accommodation than the federal law.

Religious discrimination and freedom have been a particular focus for the first year of the second Trump administration. On February 6, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order titled “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias,” to signal the administration’s intention to enforce existing laws to prevent discrimination against Christians and to give employees more latitude in the workplace to object to employer policies and to voice or display their religious beliefs at work.

Similarly, on January 29, 2025, the president issued an executive order titled “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” which announced a policy to use “all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.” As a result, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) highlighted an uptick in enforcement actions regarding religious discrimination in 2025.

Next Steps

Enforcing attendance policies, telework policies, and scheduling in a consistent and fair manner across all religious holidays can help employers avoid discrimination claims. To ensure consistency, employers can use online systems or software to detect patterns in approving or denying requests for leave on religious holidays, which might indicate supervisors favoring one religious group more than others.

Employers may wish to train supervisors to comply with state and federal laws on religious accommodations. Documenting the legitimate business reasons for denying a religious accommodation request may help to reduce an employer’s legal risk. Employers also may reduce discord or disputes by clearly reiterating time off and telework policies before the holidays.

These holidays are upcoming:

• Hindus will observe Geeta Jayanti on December 1, 2025.
• Buddhists will observe Bodhi Day on December 8, 2025.
• Jews will celebrate Hanukkah from December 14-22, 2025.
• Christians will celebrate Christmas on December 25, 2025.

Ogletree Deakins will continue to monitor developments and will provide updates on the Employment Law and Leaves of Absence blogs as new information becomes available.

This article and more information on how the Trump administration’s actions impact employers can be found on Ogletree Deakins’ Administration Resource Hub.

James M. Paul is a shareholder in Ogletree Deakins’ Tampa and St. Louis offices.

Leslie E. Wallis is a shareholder in Ogletree Deakins’ Los Angeles office.

This article was co-authored by Leah J. Shepherd, who is a writer in Ogletree Deakins’ Washington, D.C., office.

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