There are dozens of religious holidays every year that fall on working days, and employers need to accommodate workers of all faiths.

With Ramadan starting this week, employers should be flexible with working patterns to help employees who are fasting.

This might involve letting staff take their breaks at different times of day, or allowing them to work from home or work more flexibly.

These don’t have to be permanent arrangements, but will send an important signal to staff from different ethnic and religious backgrounds.

An employee has the right to request flexible working arrangements if they have 26 weeks’ service, although the government is proposing to make it a right from day one.

The employer has three months to respond to the request, and while they are not obliged to agree to the request, they will need to justify a refusal.

For any worker wishing to use a formal flexible working request for a festival like Ramadan, they will need to plan ahead in case the employer takes the full three months to respond.

Unless there are substantial operational constraints on the business, an employer would be advised to make informal arrangements with workers and not to push them down this formal route.

If someone just seeks a bit of short-term flexibility for something like Ramadan, then forcing a formal process is also non-inclusive behaviour.