INTRODUCTION

Workplace spirituality has recently emerged as a significant aspect of

organizations and hence, a significant topic of inquiry in the organizational science.

Since the late 1990s, publications such as Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Fortune

and others have reported a growing desire among employees for meaning and purpose

at work, for a spiritual dimension to organizational life. Spirituality is the state of

intimate relationship with the inner self of higher values and morality as well as

recognizing the truth of inner nature of people. The concept of spirituality at workplace

can be explained as an experience of interconnectedness, shared by all those involved in

the work process, initially triggered by the awareness that each is individually driven by

an inner power, which raises and maintains his/her sense of honesty, kindness, and

courage, consequently leading to the collective creation of an aesthetically motivational

environment characterized by a sense of purpose, high ethical standards, acceptance,

peace, trust, thus establishing an atmosphere of enhanced team performance and

overall harmony. Many organizations are encouraging the development of this new

trend because a humanistic work environment creates a win-win situation for both the

employees and the organization.

The notion of an inner life where the human soul exists is popular today in

secular life, both at work and outside work due to several factors in the highly unstable

working environment prevailing in the present globalized corporate era. The current

interest in spirituality as a means to foster individual growth and build community

which benefits organizations is linked to Mary Parker Follet’s concept of integrative

experience. Follet proposed a conscious process of relating each other wherein

connections would develop individuals as well as larger community. The organizations

are interested in fostering spirituality at work not only because it enhances individuals,
but also because it leads to their making contributions that help organizations achieve

competitive advantage. In Creative Experience (1924), Follet stated the need for

attention to one’s spiritual life in the workplace when she said that “.....the divorce of

our so-called spiritual life from our daily activities is a fatal dualism. We are not to

ignore our industry, commerce, etc., and seek spiritual development elsewhere. There is

energy flowing from our material progress which, uniting with other energies; will

create new men and new environment.”

Successful organizations are driven by a set of core values. Organizations are to

clarify and redefine their purpose and their values, so that they can offer meaning to

everyone who works there. Meaning (as in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs) is a primary

driver, which implies that people will not contribute effectively to their organizations

without it. Value congruency fosters a sense of integrity and wholeness within the

organization that facilitates individual and organizational growth. Spirituality means

the development of values which enable the human spirit to grow and flourish and self-

transcendence. The values that are important are those which allow an individual to

transcend self and which lead to the creation of improved organizations and society.

DEFENITIONS AND CONCEPT

Workplace spirituality has been defined as “a framework of organizational

values evidenced in the culture that promote employees’ experience of transcendence

through the work process, facilitating their sense of being connected to other in a way

that provides feeling of completeness and joy” (Giacalone and Jurkiewicz, 2003)

According to Ashmos and Duchon, spirituality at work is the recognition that

employees have an inner life that nourishes and is nourished by meaningful work that
takes place in the context of community. Thus spirituality at work has three

components: the inner life, meaningful work, and community.

• Conditions for community include items that assess the extent to which necessary

elements or enabling conditions for community are present. Thus, a community

is a place in which people can experience personal growth, be valued for

themselves as individuals, and have a sense of working together.

• Meaning at work includes items that capture a sense of what is important,

energizing, and joyful about work. That is, it taps into work-related dimensions

of human experience that are neither physical nor intellectual, but spiritual.

• Inner life is composed of items that capture an individual’s hopefulness,

awareness of personal values, and concern for spirituality.

Spirituality is a way for celebrating the self behaviour of the employees that enables

the organization to be different. Firmly rooted at the centre of organizational

spirituality discussion is the notion of core values. For core values to be inspiring, they

must be shared by the organization and its people. Community is perhaps the most

frequently discussed value. Community enables workers to find substantive meaning in

their work, facilitating them to help co-workers and customers achieve greater success.

Teamwork and serving others can create a sense of family that inspires improved

creativity and productivity. Closely linked to community are the values accomplished,

self esteem and balanced work life.

BENEFITS OF WORKPLACE SPIRITUALITY

Positive individual transformation is an outcome of inner spiritual

transformation of an individual. Development of each individual’s full potential is one

goal of emphasizing spirituality in the workplace. Individual growth also benefits work

organizations because one of the goals of allowing spirit to enter the workplace is to

improve profit and productivity. Growth is a win-win outcome for individuals,

organizations, and society.

There is also evidence that workplace spirituality programs not only lead to

beneficial personal outcomes such as increased joy, peace, serenity, job satisfaction, but

organizational benefits also including organizational development and less turnover.

Employees who work for organizations they consider being spiritual are less fearful,

more ethical, and more committed. And there is mounting evidence that a more humane

workplace is more productive, flexible, and creative. Most importantly from a

management, leadership, and organizational perspective spirituality could be ultimate

competitive advantage.

The spiritual well being, which includes a sense of community, will be positively

related to co-operation and negatively related to turnover and absenteeism. Several

researchers have advanced the idea that sense of community is linked to employee

commitment and turnover which is strategy related to intention to quit. Increased

workplace spirituality results in organization commitment, intrinsic work satisfaction,

more job involvement and organization based self esteem.

More productive, creative, and personally fulfilled employees have a direct and

close impact on the corporate success, be it financial or non financial. As organizational

values and structure encourage individual growth, self esteem is promoted. Strong self

esteem makes it easier for individuals to be part of community without losing personal

identity. Inspiring organizational values promote the development of the whole or

complete individual.
 “While traditional approaches aim at managing change from the outside in,

knowledge of the spiritual foundation of life suggests that change can be handled from

‘inside out’. It suggests that individuals who experience the spirituality foundation of

life can grow and develop in ways consistent with organizational goals.” (Heaton et. al.

2004) Improvement in personal functioning (e.g. improvement in ability to overcome

fatigue), interpersonal functioning (e.g. improved conflict handling), and organizational

functioning (e.g. improved interdepartmental understanding) are suggested to be some

of the organizational relevant outcomes of individual spiritual transformation.

Workplace spirituality provides an ethical process that reflects requirements for

legitimacy for both leader influence and follower empowerment to facilitate value

congruence across the strategic, empowered team, and individual, and ultimately

corporate social responsibility.

The benefits of workplace spirituality can be summarized as follows:

• A sense of relevance and purpose to employees’ lives

• A better work ethic and work/life balance

• A greater respect for diversity in the organization

• Lower stress for employees

• Less ego and less organizational conflict

• Increased competitive advantage

• Mentoring and supportiveness

• High levels of creativity and innovation

 • Respect for conservation of resources

Spiritual intelligence is an ability to access higher meanings, values, abiding

purposes, and unconscious aspects of the self and to embed these meanings, values and

purposes in living a richer and more creative life. Signs of high Spiritual Quotient

include ability to think out of the box, humility, and an access to energies that come

from something beyond the ego, beyond just me and my day-to-day concerns. SQ is the

ultimate intelligence of the visionary leader.

According to Danah Zohar, spiritually intelligent leadership can be fostered by

applying 12 principles:

• Self Awareness: Knowing what I believe in and value, and what deeply

motivated me

• Spontaneity: Living in and being responsive to the moment

• Being Vision-and-Value-Led: Acting from principles and deep beliefs, and living

accordingly

• Holism: Seeing larger patterns, relationships, and connections; having a sense of

belonging

• Compassion: Having the quality of “feeling-with” and deep empathy

• Celebration of Diversity: Valuing other people for their differences despite them

• Field Independence: Standing against the crowd and having one’s own

convictions
 • Humility: Having the sense of being a player in a larger drama, of one’s true

place in the world

• Tendency to Ask Fundamental “Why?” Questions: Needing to understand things

and get to the bottom of them

• Positive Use of Adversity: Learning and growing from mistakes, setbacks, and

suffering

• Sense of Vocation: Feeling called upon to serve, to give something back

EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT

Ashmos and Duchon argued that five societal trends have formed the basis for

arise of the recent concern for increasing spirituality in the workplace. The first trend

was workers who are demoralized due to downsizing, reengineering, or layoffs. The

second trend was “the decline of neighbourhoods, churches, civic groups, and extended

families as principal places for feeling connected and the substitution of the workplace

“as a primary source of community.” A third impetus for interest in spirituality in the

workplace was curiosity about Asian cultures and philosophies which emphasized

meditation, loyalty, and “finding one’s spiritual centre in any activity.” A fourth trend

was aging and concern with the meaning of life, particularly by the baby boomers.

Finally, and fifth, global competition leading to the need to gain competitive advantage

from full utilization of the individual, including the heart, fostered spirituality. The

emergence of people-centred management is yet another factor.

Traditional support systems like places of worship, neighbourhoods, and

extended families are declining in importance to the individual, and time previously

spent there is being substituted by time spent at work; work is thus becoming
increasingly central to employees’ personal growth. Consequently, individuals are

seeking to merge their personal and professional values, desiring to achieve personal

fulfilment through their labour.

The spirituality in the workplace movement had its genesis in America in the

early 1990s. Elementary attempts at an understanding of workplace spirituality was

born of organizational and social psychology, ethics, and management as evidenced in

books, articles, and special journal issues or section (e.g., Journal of Managerial

Psychology, Journal of Management Inquiry, Journal of Management Education,

Organization, MSR version of Academy of Management Journal, Journal of

Organization Change Management). The theory of workplace spirituality emerged

through theoretical advocacy and organizational case study.

People were getting burned out and de-motivated by the ego dominated world of

business and knowledge workers started to get a feeling of instability. In a way,

spirituality in the workplace was born out of the collision of the new age movement with

soulless culture of corporate world. Gradually, as we entered the 21st century, the image

of spirituality shifted as more and more credible individuals like Danah Zohar and Ian

Marshal introduced the term Spiritual Quotient through “Spiritual Intelligence and

Ultimate Intelligence” published in 2000.

Workplace spirituality has been suggested to be an important aspect of future

organizations and of organizational science as a field. The community aspect is likely to

be increasingly significant in future organizational development efforts. A particular

form of relational sensitivity is required to enable creative and innovative strategic

problem solving. Investigations are going on how spiritual maturity leads to the

capacity to preserve in time of great trial.

 The current concept of workplace spirituality can be seen as a part of the stages

in the evolution of a distinct orientation in OB characterized by broader recognition of

an employee as a human being and by greater attention to providing more complete

engagement and fulfilment to an employee at workplace.

FACILITATION

Basically there are three views of workplace spirituality facilitation

1. Focus on individual experiences of spirituality at work.

2. Organization’s facilitation of employee experiences of spirituality at work

through organizational aspects such as values incorporated in an organization’s

culture.

3. Mutually nourishing relationship between individual employee’s spirituality

experiences and workplace features.

The practices to facilitate the nourishment of spirit in the workplace are (a) an

organization’s possession of and adherence to employee-oriented values (b) providing

employees decision-making responsibility and autonomy (c) use of self-management

teams (d) adoption of collective form of rewards and recognition (e) letting employee to

be ‘who they are and use and develop their gifts and skills’ and (f) facilitating

employees’ fulfilment of their family and social obligations and (g) removing fear and

abuse from the workplace.

Some of the internal factors that may trigger a worker’s desire toward spiritual

performance in the workplace are a raised level of consciousness; the confrontation

with a life-changing problem; a change of habits, a change of lifestyle; a desire for inner

peace and self satisfaction, aversion of a competitive environment; the will to feel better
about oneself, work, colleagues, and society; or the aversion of a high-handed

hierarchical structure. There is a ripple effect within the employee that starts with these

internal changes and expands through ‘connection with empathising colleagues’ to team

performance, which is expressed in increased support, elevated trust, and enhanced

understanding ultimately leading to a greater degree of responsibility and ownership as

well as awareness of the big picture. The possible outcomes to this sequence include

greater output, better organizational performance, increased job satisfaction, corporate

social responsibility, competitive advantage, etc.

Further, leadership has been suggested to have an important role in workplace

spirituality facilitation. Leadership choices should always be constrained by ethical

sorting out, not just fiscal responsibility. Quality of interpersonal relationships among

leaders is one of the behaviour that manifests workplace spirituality. Respectfully

pooling the wisdom and insights of talented and diverse members of the organization in

searching for solutions that would honour the organization’s commitment is very

essential to create an atmosphere of spirit at work. Behaviour modelling by senior

leadership is a key anchor. Frequent reference to a refraction of decisions in light of the

mission and values statements of the organization by the senior leaders like CEOs, VPs,

etc. is central.

Individual factors contributing to workplace spirituality are

 Quality of interpersonal relations

 Leadership as a calling

 Reinforced spiritual practices

 Mentoring and formation programs

Organizational factors facilitating workplace spirituality are

 Beliefs and values

 Behaviour modelling

 Formal structure and rewards relating to mission and spirituality

 Leadership formation programs

 Formal decision process

 Institutional symbolism, prayer, and reflection

In the recent years, we have been bombarded by news of the collapse of well known

organizations because of the fraudulent or unethical dealings. In today’s changing and

challenging corporate environment especially in a phase of rising after a recession, it is

becoming increasingly important for stakeholders to ensure that the organizations they

deal with operate morally and ethically along with having a code of conduct that is

grounded on a strong set of values to work towards the vision and mission. High

financial and operational performance is a precondition to positioning the organization

to fulfil its mission. Mission integration should be done by senior management. The

corporate of today are trying by all means to communicate the mission to the employees

in the best and effective way in order to achieve goal identification. Wisdom and

creativity are organizational values. The leader should incorporate insights of others. As

workers become a source of creativity and influence corporate policies their need for

meaning is fulfilled. Organizations that do not invest in a culture that allows workers to

find meaning and purpose in their work may struggle to release the creativity, learning,

and passion of the workplace.

A viable spiritual culture within an organization is demonstrated by

• A lofty organizational mission

• Humane leadership

• Investment in development

• Style of decision making

• Connection to transcendence

CONCLUSION

Whereas workplaces can change and develop without attention to spirituality,

changes that are created by people who are aware of the dynamic interaction of the true

self attend to the spirit. The essence of relating our material life with the spiritual

concept is that it occurs through daily awareness of what happens in interactions with

others, through awareness of the ultimate effect in the community, laying the

foundation for a new organizational culture, a new society. Our long-term goal is to

understand how spirituality can contribute to more productive work organizations.

Enlightened behaviour is not only attributed to prestigious religious officials but

can be exerted by regular members of society as well while spiritual behaviour remains

the only durable option to lead the change, ie., change every challenge into an

opportunity. It is also important for every spiritual intelligence advocate to remember

that this trend may not find ready acceptance everywhere - simply because the

transition from a highly individualistic and aggressive approach, toward a more

reciprocal mentality is still in process. As long as this enlightened workplace behaviour

is nurtured and nourished, there can only be progress.

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