Spirituality In Workplace

Workplace Spirituality

Introduction & Background:

In twenty-first century there was began a movement purpose of which was to focus on employee spirituality in workplace (Shellenbarger). It appeared as a movement seeking peoples who want to live their lives within faith and spiritual values in the workplace. Workplace spirituality is different from spirituality itself and limited to the workplace of an organization. “Workplace spirituality is considered highly personal and philosophical construct, nearly all of the academic definitions acknowledge that spirituality involves a sense of wholeness, connectedness at work, and deeper values” (Gibbons, 2000).

Business Week, June 5, 2005 was the first publication which mentioned workplace spirituality.

189). “Spirituality at work is not about religion, or about getting people converted to a specific belief system” (Laabs, 1995; Cavanagh, 1999). In organization point of view its implication is very important because by developing humanistic environment organizations can gain positive benefits and worker can achieve full capacity. Workplace spirituality is related to bottom line of any business. Teams are the basic and very important unit for any organizations around the world. In organizations, all the responsibilities such as projects, budgets and other research to work are done in team in order to face competition and meet customer demands. The use of teams has become the symbol of an ideal model of work and working behavior for organizations. Teams are not built easily they require certain conditions in order to become successful and

Workplace spirituality is complex and multi faceted construct which reflect between personal value and organization value. However for the value of the organization have truly impact according to Milliman et al (1999), Collins & Porras (1994). These impacts must reflect the inner needs, belief and aspiration of the employees. Research is beginning to establish a relationship between spirit at work, employee well-being, and organiza¬tional performance. Individuals with high spirit at work are well adjusted and exhibit a sense of inner harmony, positive energy, conscientiousness, and a spiritual inclination (Kinjerski, 2004). Spirit at work is also related to an increased commitment in the workplace (Krishnakumar & Neck, 2002; Milliman, Ferguson, Trick¬ett, & Condemi, 1999). More spe¬cifically, employee spirit at work has been found to be positively related to employee work attitudes, such as job satisfaction, organizational com-mitment, work self-esteem, and the lack of intention to quit (Milliman, Czaplewski, & Ferguson, 2003). Be¬cause these attitudes have been asso¬ciated with a reduction in absentee¬ism and turnover and an increase in job performance, it follows that spir¬it at work should also lead to similar