Shownotes

It is the holy month of Ramadan (Ramazan) for millions of muslims across the world - a time of fasting, prayer and reflection. My memories of Ramadan(from India) are all about food (Iftar) and sweet sewai. Earlier this week I caught up Uzma Lodhi to hear her thoughts on Ramadan, what it means to her and how important it is for her personal identity, We also spoke about…..

👉🏾 Childhood memories of waking up for sehri with her siblings

👉🏾 The tendency to generalise, to treat communities as monoliths because it is easier to stereotype than not. 

👉🏾 Supportive managers and organisations

👉🏾 What organisations can do to support employees

👉🏾 What you should not be doing to create discomfort for your muslim colleagues

👉🏾 Some advise for those fasting for the first time at work

👉🏾 We also briefly touched on navigating Ramadan in a multi-faith household. 

For Uzma, Ramadan is an uplifting, joyous time about achieving her inner zen, reflection, gratitude, and clarity. Thank you Uzma for the conversation. 

What does Ramadan mean to you and what are your memories of it?  

Memorable passages from the episode: 

👉🏾 Very excited to be here. I'm director of internal comms that APCO worldwide, I've been here for three and a half years with a focus on employer brand strategy and we're at the beginning of Ramadan, so this is a great time to have this conversation. 

👉🏾 What does it mean to me? What does it mean to religion first? First of all, why do Muslims fast? They do it because it is one of the five pillars that Muslims follow. So within that, it's one of the five core pillars and it’s core to the identity of being a Muslim.

👉🏾 Why do I do it? I think I've been doing it since I was a child, but that's not the reason why I do it now. I do it now because it helps me achieve kind of mental clarity and practice humility on an everyday basis. This is a month where I push myself to have a moment of Zen and tranquillity and think about what's important and I think about how grateful I am for everything that I have, that I've achieved and how to help others at this time. Normally I'm very chatty and very loud but it actually for Ramadan it is a moment to kind of take a moment to stop and breathe and that's why I do it. It's a peaceful month and I look forward to it to help me achieve that level of peace I need. 

👉🏾 Absolutely, I have these great childhood memories and we could spend an entire kind of two-hour podcast just talking about childhood memories and how amazing Ramadan is. All of us waking up and all of us going down the stairs in our pyjamas at 3:00 AM at that point in the year when we were children doing the fasting. All of us there, my mom cooking breakfast for us and just all arguing, being tired with each other, but doing it because we know we're going to do it, you know, and then eating together when it's Iftar and it's just the most amazing.......... Which is what I aspire to, which is what I want our kids to have those kind of memories. And it's also kind of a form team building as kids, you go through it together. I loved it, it's such an amazing time. And even now at my age, I wake up and there's a group chat with our family and it's the only group chat you're going to have that's completely going full-on at 4:30 in the morning because they're the only people awake, they're the only people that know what you do eating breakfast and, it's perfect yeah I really enjoy it.

👉🏾 No, so experience in working organisations in the UK and in Belgium and I think I've been quite fortunate. I will say that I think I've been quite fortunate in the organisations I've worked in, where they've all shown quite a lot of respect and awareness. And if they haven't shown awareness it's because they purely don't know. So I've had to go in there and educate them and inform them of this has when Iftar is, this has when sehri is. I might be a bit tired in the mornings, but I'm fully committed to doing my role. I might not join a lunch meeting here or there, but that's okay.

👉🏾 And they've all been very supportive. I've been very lucky to have kind of managers I've had over the last 15, 18 years, doing what I do. So I don't have any complaints and I think in the role that I'm in right now and the company I'm in right now, where some of the offices have the room, like a space for you, a quiet space if a person needs it to go and say namaz, that's quite nice. And that's something we should be heading towards absolutely for all organisations, for there to be a safe space for any employee, for whatever reason for them to use it. I'm looking forward to how this evolves for all organisations and all businesses because Ramadan is one month, but there are other reasons why employers should have a safe space and a quiet room for employees to have that moment for themselves if they need it. 

👉🏾 I've got memories...... that may be just down to my personality, but I've got memories of me printing off the Ramadan time timetable and leaving it at my boss's desk going. This is what you need to know, I've highlighted these columns, this is when there'll be prayers. But I mean, that was 10, 12 years ago and I was a much younger person then. Yes, I personally do think I have a role in telling people this is what's happening, not just for myself, but for junior colleagues in the organisation as well, where you've said that they will probably not want to say anything for fear of upsetting that balance, it's that perception of, maybe they think I can't do my job if I'm fasting. They can absolutely do their job when they are fasting, it's a great time. 

👉🏾 You get clarity on you need to do and not worried about food or what's for lunch. I sometimes find it's even easier to work when I'm fasting, because I have a clear action and I become more focused. It's different for everyone, the whole thing about religion and fasting is very nuanced and your point in education, I know something we've done in our organisation this year, we sent out a one-pager on how to support colleagues, how to respect colleagues during Ramadan. Be aware of when Iftar is, when sehri is, if they've got prayers if your colleagues are observing prayers because it's nuanced some colleagues won't be saying all the prayers during the day, and how to support them. 

👉🏾 Do you know where the prayer room is or does your meeting clash with when they've got a personal appointment to do that? When they need to observe a particular ritual, have an awareness, it comes down to that and we've put together this guide that we've shared with leaders this last week to make sure they can help inform how they work with their colleagues and clients and partners. It's a one-step but it's the part of a process right, you have to educate and inform people so they can begin to make informed and educated choices. 

👉🏾 No, the term monolith is really interesting. Absolutely not, absolutely not. I don't think you could do it with any religion, as there have always been nuances in everybody's religion and how they interpret it. And, you know this is has really been driven by culture, tradition, family, who you surround yourself with; that might not be either cultural family, and what gets passed down to you. I got asked a few years ago, funny anecdote perhaps, I got asked during an interview process a few years ago, what is the Asian view on Brexit? And I just thought, how do you answer that? There are so many nuances to that that you could become flummoxed with just trying to think about how to layout the answer to that in a verbal conversation. 

👉🏾 So monolith religion, no absolutely not. I mean, this is a podcast, but I don't wear a hijab, but I do say my prayers during Ramadan, I do fast I take it seriously. I do take a moment to find, for want of a better word, my inner Zen to remind myself of how grateful I am and how thankful I am for everything that I have. I think there's a scale, right? And you just have to respect that everybody's on their own path when they do Ramadan when they follow a religion. I say there's definitely not textbook, there is a textbook and it is the Quran but people have to read it and see how it works for them in their everyday society as well. 

👉🏾 Absolutely, and it's also shaped by their own memories of how they interpret religion, how they interpret Ramadan. You know, I can talk about it from a personal perspective where you grow up and as a kid, you begin how we did it, we began with half-day fasting. It’s all about Eid the end of Ramadan and how you celebrate Eid and the gifts that you gave each other, and you get dressed in your....... I have a Pakistani background, so you dressed up in your Shalwar Kameez, and you go to the Mosque and you see your friends and family, and you have Indian sweets in the morning when you go for prayers. So it's whole thing, there's a whole social event that kids grow up getting excited about. 

👉🏾 And as you get older, you understand the spiritual element of it and you do it for the full day and you understand what it brings you. So there's like a learning culture, so I have learned it definitely as to, if somebody else had joined the religion halfway through their life, they've taken it very literally. So no monolith, absolutely not. They're doing for the same reasons, but how they interpret it, the nuances about whether they say prayers, how they celebrate it, how they eat, that can be very different. 

👉🏾 Yeah, it's a good question. I think it really comes down to there being two things; there being an awareness and there being a level of respect about the whole month. Awareness about what times your colleagues might be praying or might need to take some time out, even just for rest, it doesn't have to be a religious ritual they need to do. They might need to take time to rest because it is a long day in some of the markets that you might work with. On the other side, if you're doing kind of face-to-face meetings, try to stay clear of having a food component to it, or making sure they're involved in the non-food component part of it to make sure you respect what they're going through at that time. If you're working with colleagues in different times zones, make sure you remember what time they're Sehri and Ifthaar times are, so Sehri is the time they stop eating in the morning and Iftar is the time that they break fast in the evening. Have an awareness of what those times are, so you can give them space on either side of that time to prepare their food and to eat it and say prayers, and around those times. 

👉🏾 In terms of what not to do. Don't ignore it, it's a big part of your colleagues, if they invest their time into this, don't ignore it. I think that's the level of disrespect, I mean you can do lots of horrible things. But actually don't ignore it be aware that it's happening, show respect, and ask if they are okay, ask if they need something to be changed within their own working schedule. If you manage people, be aware that Eid is going to happen at the end of the month and we'll get a couple of people taking time off. And also be aware that the day of Eid is never really confirmed until maybe the day before.

👉🏾 So if you always find, oh why is my colleague taking time off and I didn't even know about it until now? It's because we don't know, we know the day before because we have a lunar calendar and our times are adjusted and we find out when it's the right time based on the moon. That's what I think as the dos and don'ts. Be aware, show respect, show awareness, learn, inform yourself, educate yourself.

👉🏾 Well, it's been a while since I first started fasting at work, but I would say if it's the first time don't push yourself, absolutely schedule time for yourself, you have your own calendar, scheduled time for when you need time just to sit down and breathe, close your eyes for 10,15 minutes somewhere. I think power naps if it's your first time and you're in a work environment. Talk to your boss, explain that this is the first time, and I don't know how my body's going to react while working full time. Have the open dialogue, don't be afraid to have open dialogue with your bosses, and say I'm going through this and I want to do the best job I possibly can, help me get there, help me get to that goal and while respecting my process of how I'm doing things. Absolutely make it a two way conversation and don't be afraid to. The first few days of the hardest, so take that into account and look after yourself when you do it. And enjoy it, also enjoy it, I forgot to say that because I do have fun doing this. Have fun doing it, but look after yourself. 

👉🏾 Don't be weird about it. Do we ask them a question? Yes, you can ask them the question. The question is advice from non-fasting colleagues, if you don't know, ask, but like check the comfort levels of your colleagues, does this interrupt anything you're doing, when is your Iftar? If you don't know when, your colleague’s Iftar is you have to ask, because you know, you're gonna sit there and be awkward as well and it's going to be an awkward conversation until you have it. It's different for every office, is different for every, I say office because it's where I work, but it's different in every market, in every country, the timings are a bit different. So don't be weird, do just five minutes of research, that's what's there, that's what Google is there for. And get involved, in the office, I work in at the end of the month, we'll have like an Eid lunch to bring everybody back in and see colleagues and have amazing food that's quite nice. Think about how you can help celebrate the end of the month, think about how you can help support your colleagues when they have Ifthaar in the evening, they like to talk about it, they go through a lot, it's worth connecting with them.

👉🏾 Absolutely, have the conversation, that's my one tip, always be open in your communication talk to them. If you want to learn about it, learn about it, absolutely. 

👉🏾 Yeah, that's a good question. So I'm Pakistani Muslim, for myself and my partner is agnostic, but he has a Hindu heritage, and we have many conversations. I think, at the beginning of our relationship about how do we find our own path. And it's really about open communication about what are we comfortable with? Where's the middle point? And it's open communication about finding the right path, I mean I fast every day and I have a prayer mat and everything in the house. And you know, for the first Iftar of this month for this year, his parents made food for Iftar, and it was quite lovely because we're bringing together different culture’s food, it was really lovely. I'm not saying it always works, because we will have moments of, oh, wait a minute is that.....? Oh, you're doing that, okay, I don't believe that. And there are those odd moments, but we always made a promise that we'll talk to each other and just see what the comfort levels are and how far we go with things. 

👉🏾 I will say it's really interesting to learn about different culture and now it's being integrated into my life. Balancing a mixed culture, mixed ethnicity, both cultures are very family driven, very family orientated and we always focus on what is the same in both, and that's what drives us forward. For the elements that are different, it's a conversation, it's always an open conversation to find our way forward.

👉🏾 Absolute pleasure. Thank you for asking.

Important Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/uzmalodhi/?originalSubdomain=uk

Twitter: @nandosgirl

https://bmeprpros.co.uk/the-xec-tutors/uzma-lodhi-senior-associate-director-global-internal-communications-european-marketing-lead-apco-worldwide/

https://bmeprpros.co.uk/the-xec-tutors/