Spirituality in the workplace

 

Sifikile Songo
Post Correspondent

Workplace spirituality is not about religion or conversion or about accepting a specific belief system.

 

It is not any form of theology.

It is the pursuit of meaning and purpose at work, the desire to connect to other people and be part of a community.

Workplace spirituality is about leaders and followers who understand themselves as spiritual human beings who have a calling that provides meaning and purpose to an individual’s life.

It is also about membership where people experience a sense of belonging and connectedness with one another and their workplace community.

Workplace spirituality is also about acknowledging that people have an inner and outer life.

 

Taking care of the inner life can produce a more meaningful and productive outer life, well- being, corporate responsibility and sustainability, as well as financial performance.

 

It has become more recognised as an integral part of work.

Workplace spirituality values include accountability, care, co-operatives, honesty, integrity, justice, respect, service and trust worthiness.

Elements of spirituality in the workplace

1. Vision: A way of thinking of self, work and the organisation where one works

2. Lifestyle: A way of living and practices assumed to live out the vision.

3. Experience: Noticing and reflecting on the way our work environment talks back to us.

Goals of spirituality in the workplace

1. To improve interpersonal relationships.

2. To cultivate talent, purpose and passion.

3. To foster morality and build trust.

4. To balance spirituality with high performance.

Characteristics of spiritual organisations

Spiritual organisations provide ways for their members to make positive contributions to their workplace.

 

They provide their employees with an environment that fosters positive relationships with co-workers.

 

The members should feel part of a team with a common goal.

The primary goal of a spiritual organisation is to have a goal that every employee can measure and understand.

A spiritual organisation yearns to keep its members focused on the same purpose.

 

This gives them meaning about their jobs and about how they feel about their organisations.

 

This in turn, helps the organisation to achieve its goals.

Reasons for integrating spirituality in the workplace

1. It provides organisational members with a way to counter balance the demanding and stressful workplace environment.

2. Employees yearn to be part of a mission, to add value to and to contribute in a meaningful way.

3. The yearning for the workplace to be a place where employees both experience and express our deep soul.

4. Employees are increasingly demanding from organisations so are the organisations. For example, employees tend to work longer hours with corporate downsizing and restructuring.

 

As a result, they tend to want to bring more of their outside – self to the workplace.

 

On the other hand, organisations continue to struggle to find and keep talented employees, they need to offer more than a job.
Workplace spirituality programmes

Spirituality is shown in the workplace through the following programmes:

Bereavement programmes

Employee- assistance programmes

Programmes that integrate work and family

Management systems that encourage personal and spiritual transformation.

Diversity programmes that create inclusive cultures.

Integration of core values and core business decisions and practices

Servant leadership and stewardship leadership practices that support growth and well-being of others.

Displays and distribution of wellness information

Leadership practices that support the growth and development of all employees

Leading in a spiritual workplace

Leaders and managers should make it safe and permissible to talk about spirituality in business as normal and naturally as profitability.

An organisation can achieve productivity through the nurturing and expression of the self and the spirit.

A leader’s role is to facilitate the discovery of the spirits, to esteem it, to celebrate it and to hold others accountable for expressing it.

Employees and colleagues should be supported in expressing their spirit, their life purpose and their gifts.

Leaders should help employees to discover their life purpose and ensure that their life is consistent with, and demanding of their purpose this increases their loyalty, creativity and innovation a deep sense of reliance, self-reliance, self-renewal, self-generation and resilience.

Employees should be helped to leach and express their full creative spirit.

The value of spirituality in the workplace

It influences satisfaction.

 

Workplace spirituality encourages each individual to bring their whole self to both work and home.

 

It increases satisfaction at both levels.

It strengthens commitment.

 

When the organisation fosters the essence of who you are.

 

It enables and individual to feel and display loyalty.

It improves productivity.

 

Feeling a greater sense of connection to one’s work is motivating.

 

This in turn, increases the overall productivity of an organisation.

It improves the bottom-line.

 

Organisations which integrate spirituality as a bottom-line into its practices increase the financial bottom line.

It allows for creativity and innovation.

 

As a result, new products and services are creating leading to more efficient contribution to the organisations.

There is increased authenticity in communication.

 

When the truth is safely and respectfully spoken, new possibilities emerge.

 

People feel more aligned to the organisation; they thus work together in a trusting team.

There is increased moral and ethical behaviour.

 

Ethical behaviour for a business is the development of trust.

 

Once an organisation operates in an ethical framework both employees and employer trust each other.

 

So, do the customers who will stay longer because of trust.

It promotes the expression of talent, brilliance and genius, talent is the divine gifts, brilliance relate to the employee intellect while genius is the commodity which every employee has.

 

An employee’s job is to connect with that genius.

 

This leads to increased self-fulfilment, contentment and a deep sense of belonging to the place.

It reduces absenteeism and labour turnover thus enhancing organisational effectiveness.

 

Sifikile Songo is a psychologist and a lecturer at the Manicaland State University of Applied Sciences. She writes in her personal capacity.