Intel named the most religion-friendly company: NPR

The REDI index uses a range of measures to assess a company’s friendliness towards religion and belief.

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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The REDI index uses a range of measures to assess a company’s friendliness towards religion and belief.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Intel Corporation is the most faith-friendly workplace in the country according to this year’s ranking of large companies by the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation.

The Corporate Religious Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (REDI) Index uses ten measures to determine a company’s ranking.

Among them:

• Is religion mentioned on the company’s main diversity page?
• Company sponsors faith-based affiliations such as employee resource groups.
• Is religion clearly addressed in diversity training?
• The company matches employee donations to religious charities.

The index found that 219 of the Fortune 500 companies reference or illustrate religion on their main diversity landing page. That’s up from 202 the year before.

A significantly smaller number of Fortune 500 companies — just 43 — publicly report having faith-based employee resource groups, or ERGs, up from 37 in 2022.

The full REDI Index report highlighted what specific company ERGs are doing to support religious diversity and inclusion.

For example, Ford Motor Corporation includes in its orientation process for all new employees information about the Ford Interfaith Network (FIN). The reports say, “They have eight denominations that make up the FIN.” The report then describes how each of the eight faith ERGs has its own dedicated budgets and internal resources such as post groups and executive sponsors.

The report also says that Target Corporation’s multiple faiths—Buddhist, Christian, Jewish and Muslim—play an important role in reinforcing the company’s “culture of belonging.”

One of the more unusual measures in the index is whether a company provides a priest or other spiritual care services. The report draws particular attention to Tyson Foods’ chaplaincy program. “Tyson has 100 chaplains in a 22-year program,” the report said, “which is available to all US team members 7/24/365.”

To bring attention to religion ERGs, the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation also named the leaders of these groups at Accenture, Equinix, Google and American Airlines as “Leaders of the Year.”

While the overall “most faith-friendly” designation went to Intel, the REDI index also breaks down companies by sector.

Ford Motor Company took the lead in the automobile industry. American ranked number one in airlines. Target came first in retail. The index ranks PayPal as the most religion-friendly financial services company.

The 2023 Index is the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation’s fourth annual measure of US companies’ DEI initiatives.