US to allow federal workers to promote religion in workplace

By Courtney Rozen

WASHINGTON, July 28 (Reuters) - Federal employees can try to recruit their coworkers to join their religion, the Trump administration said on Monday and encouraged them to pray.

Agency employees may seek to "persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views" in the office, Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, the U.S. government's human resource agency, wrote in a statement.

Supervisors can attempt to recruit their employees to their religion, so long as the efforts aren’t “harassing in nature,” according to the statement. Agencies can't discipline their employees for declining to talk to their coworkers about their religious views.

This is the latest effort to expand the role of religion in the federal workplace.

OPM in mid-July said agency workers can get permission to work from home or adjust their hours to accommodate religious prayers, after previously demanding that workers report to offices full time.