Workplace Spirituality: Drivers, Challenges, and Way Forward

Abstract

In this chapter, we look at why are we excluding spirituality from the workplace and how we could work toward overcoming this counterproductive exclusion. We know that a vast majority of members of any business organization anywhere in the world have some spiritual or religious anchoring that they claim is important to their professional lives. However, we simultaneously build and operate those very organizations in ways that are excluding spirituality, and in consequence, depriving many members of the organization from something that is of great relevance to their personal well-being. It seems self-evident that it is not in the interest of the organization, as this will adversely affect employee engagement, leading to lower productivity, fewer innovations, or less collaborative aptitudes but also a whole bundle of behaviors which might be unfavorable to organizational performance. The main argument for taking deliberate measures to overcome this predicament is not instrumental but normative in nature. Not only tolerating but embracing people’s need for spirituality at the workplace is the right thing to do. It is admitting something that is important to many of us that the corporate world demonstrates respect and appreciation for the intrinsic value of each member of the organization. In this chapter, we propose to elaborate on the above analysis by sharing some reflections on why spirituality is so often excluded from the workplace, and more importantly, what can be done to change that.