In the early 2000s, a new fad emerged in the US (as always): workplace spirituality. For many people, the concept is about as oxymoronic as “business ethics” or “military intelligence”. But it becomes relevant again as the coronavirus crisis forces a review of how we work.
Workplace spirituality originates in the ever popular but not yet proven idea of spiritual intelligence. This is the ability to invest everyday activities, events and relationships with a sense of the sacred and divine, and to solve everyday problems through spirituality.
A cursory web search shows that workplace spirituality has multiple meanings: acting with honesty and integrity in all aspects of work; treating employees, suppliers, shareholders and customers in a responsible, caring way; taking on social, environmental and ecological responsibility by serving the “wider social community”; holding religious study groups and/or prayer/meditation meetings at work; and being able to discuss values without the dogmatism and controls of an organized religion.
Certainly, many of these values can be counted as aspects of spirituality: accountability, caring, cooperativeness, honesty, integrity, justice, respect, service and trustworthiness. Spirituality is a means, not an end. It supposedly encourages questions such as these: Are our business decisions based exclusively on profit? Are employees required to sacrifice private/family time to be successful? Are we self-centred and forgetting the principles of service to others in the wider community? Do employees experience a sense of wonder at work? Do they have a sense of community?
Workplace spirituality sceptics raise various concerns, including that it imposes the ethics of a particular religious group on others, or that it trivializes religious and spiritual belief. Some worry about cost, time-wasting and the potential harassment of those who are not spiritual. It has also been suggested that the movement is led by baby boomers, who are much more aware of their mortality.
A focus on workplace spirituality makes the workplace somewhere to express or fulfil one’s deeper purpose. Work is an integral part of life, and employees do not disengage heart or brain at the office door. People bring to work their attitudes, beliefs and values about material and spiritual affairs. And personal ethics and values are relevant in nearly all aspects of work: from the choice of vocation to the treatment of colleagues and customers.