I recently hired a new employee for my team. Everyone thinks she is a great addition, and she is clearly very talented as demonstrated in her interviews.
The problem came up during on-boarding when we supplied her with her company laptop. She said she would need it configured in a Linux based operating system because her religion does not allow use of Apple or Microsoft owned operating systems. We only currently have hardware configurations for MacOs/Windows and our expectation was that she will use Windows along with the rest of our team.
She says that she can fulfill all job duties without Windows and I am inclined to believe her but corporate policy dictates WINDOWS and my management is not on board with her request for Linux.
What actions can either (1) I take as a manager to protect her rights and get upper management onboard with her religion or (2) I take against her with management for failing to fulfill her job duties?
I've never come across any situation like this and am completely confounded as to how I should handle this.
UPDATE: After many meetings yesterday with management, HR, legal, and IT we decided to give her a shot. IT is working to come up with a configuration for her that we will also make available to other employees who want to use it.
HR and Legal felt that although she is able to request accommodations for a sincerely held religious belief, this would have been an undue hardship to the company and it would be ok for us to deny her request. But ultimately we decided that she can still fulfill job requirements without Windows!
That's pretty much it. Thank you for all the helpful advice Reddit!
I'd say it was me but I've always identified as a man. There's a filesharing religion, don't want to blow up my shtick but I've affiliated with it since university, running a "mission" related to the religion.
This? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary_Church_of_Kopimism