A company updates its inclusion policy to ask employees to share pronouns, optionally, in email signatures and introductions. One employee refuses, saying even an optional ask violates his religious beliefs, and another argues that a policy with no mandate is toothless and fails transgender colleagues. Then a senior leader publicly sides with the objector. On HR Voices, host Rebecca Taylor put the scenario to Marie Garrigue, Chief People Officer at Fitness Connection.
Marie named the legal risks first, a religious accommodation dispute and the potential for discrimination claims, and then set both aside. The bigger concern was lost productivity, distraction, and damage to the organization’s existing culture. The risk Marie watches is not the lawsuit. It is the lost work.
Why the Lawsuit Is Not the Biggest Risk
Both risks trace to one statute. Title VII defines religion to include all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief, unless the employer shows it cannot reasonably accommodate them without undue hardship. In Bostock v. Clayton County, decided in 2020, the Supreme Court read the same statute to bar firing a person simply for being gay or transgender.
Marie’s attention went to what the scenario leaves open. The policy could be written support for a culture the company already has, or an attempt to force one by mandate, and Marie would handle the two differently.
The first conversation is with the person raising the concern. On “such a politically charged topic,” Marie expects two kinds of objection. Some people hold a “heartfelt concern about their beliefs,” whatever those beliefs are, and struggle to be themselves in a workplace that feels forced on them. Others bring an agenda and want a wider political movement. HR needs to know which one it is hearing.
What an Optional Policy Cannot Do
Rebecca asked whether a policy can be optional at all. It is difficult, Marie answered, to say a company has an HR policy that will be followed when following it is a choice. “Those things are not congruent with one another.”
Marie agreed with the employee who called the policy toothless, saying optional support is not strong enough for transgender colleagues. Marie also raised a separate discomfort. An inclusion effort can end up “forcing someone to out themselves” when that person is not ready to be public about gender identity at work.
The alternative skips the policy change. Marie would get buy-in and alignment from senior leadership first, start with leaders sharing pronouns in their own introductions, and “have them lead the way.” Rebecca’s point about sequence matched. A policy usually codifies behavior and culture that already exist, so a major one should never arrive as a surprise.
What Actually Works
Map Where Leaders and Employees Stand Before the Launch
Marie hoped the groundwork had happened before the policy existed. That means learning where senior leaders and the wider workforce stand on an inclusive policy. Knowing where people are and where they need to head “helps you to develop a road map.”
Pace is the next decision. Resolve the dispute too slowly and dissension grows, productivity drops, and employees begin to doubt the commitment to inclusion. Move too fast and the company ends up “missing different perspectives, not bringing people along.” Marie’s remedy is “getting advocates in from all sides” before the launch, the work Rebecca named as a change management process. Done well, “the damage should be minimal.”
Make the Repair in Public
The senior leader’s statement reads as a blindside, which Marie granted is harder to handle. Marie would rather have neither, but prefers public dissent to the usual kind, which is quiet, passive-aggressive, and more damaging to the culture. “When it happens publicly, you can make the repair publicly.”
The repair starts with the leader: where the objection came from, and why the leader voiced it that way. Senior leaders have an obligation to “protect and preserve the course of the business,” Marie argued. The question, ideally asked before any public statement, is whether this leader can fully support the policy or whether it is “a turning point for us together.” Many organizations avoid that conversation.
Put to employees, the question weighs more. “Most people are dependent upon their paycheck to live,” Marie said, so being asked whether this is still the right organization “becomes a real threat.”
Train Managers to Listen, Then Measure the Time
To prepare managers, Marie began with “leading with empathy” and with teaching them to listen. The practice is a series of thirty-minute or hour-long one-on-ones with each teammate, sometimes over lunch. It feels slower because another meeting gets canceled or a report waits; Marie’s claim is that the team returns to productive work faster.
The payoff can be counted. People have long struggled to quantify the ROI of soft skills, Marie said, and a dispute like this one supplies the numbers: hours spent in conversations, output lost while employees argue, and people who leave. By Gallup’s estimate, the manager explains 70 percent or more of the variance in engagement scores between business units.
Where Employee Relations Fits
Someone, at some level, will feel left out or violated, Marie said, especially when a change arrives as policy. Each of the two populations here would say “this violates the integrity of who I am” and take a stand over it, and Marie declined to call either one right or wrong.
Marie treats culture efforts as cross-functional work that belongs to the whole executive team, though most people point to the head of HR, whose part is to “quantify, speak about, report on,” and coach. Dissent that stays under the surface does more damage to the culture, in Marie’s experience. Two-way anonymous reporting gives it a way up, and case management built for People teams gives HR something to count.
Frequently Asked Questions About Optional Pronoun Policies
Not coherently, in Marie’s view. A policy is something a company expects people to follow, so an optional one contradicts itself. Marie would skip the policy and have senior leaders model pronoun sharing first.
Start by listening to the employee. Marie wants to learn whether the objection is a heartfelt conflict of belief or part of an agenda. Under Title VII’s religion protections, employers must reasonably accommodate religious practice unless it causes undue hardship.
Talk to the leader first, then repair in the open. Marie’s reasoning is that a public statement, unlike quiet resistance, can be answered publicly.
The whole executive team does. Marie treats culture efforts as cross-functional, ideally with operations or CEO ownership. The head of HR is usually the one named, and HR alone is less effective.
Too slowly, by Marie’s reckoning. A slow resolution adds dissension, costs productivity, and makes employees doubt the commitment to inclusion. Moving too fast skips perspectives, so you still need time to bring people along.
The Bottom Line for HR Leaders
Marie Garrigue’s framing moves the risk out of the legal file. A policy fight that drags on costs focus first, then confidence in leadership, then people. The preparation that prevents it is plain: know where leaders and employees stand, bring advocates along, and let behavior come before the rule.
The assumption Marie wants retired is that “HR is a roadblock.” Brought in early and told the goal, a People team is “a true partner” that gets the business there faster, with less risk.
See how AllVoices helps People teams hear objections early, from every side, before a policy dispute becomes a distraction.
