Spirituality In The Workplace: Conflict Or Coexistence?

According to Vijay Eswaran, an increasing number of organizations are publicly addressing spirituality as an essential ingredient of their workplace strategy. They demonstrate that spirituality is beneficial to the profit margin instead of damaging the business.

The famous quote by Annie Dillard goes like this: “How we spend our days, of course, is how we spend our lives.” As reported by the World Health Organization (WHO), one amongst the worldwide people spends person’s entire life at work. It is estimated that the typical American will work for 90,000 hours in their whole life.

After years of treating patients in their last 12 weeks of living, former palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware published the hugely successful book “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying”, which has become an international best-seller. Because of this, their most common regret is: “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”

After that, she describes in detail how they sincerely regretted having spent most of their lifetimes on the wheel of a job lifestyle that they had lost out on certain pleasures in life. It’s hard to imagine a person’s existence without employment. The connections and responsibilities that make up a person’s employment keep them busy long after the clock has passed five o’clock. It’s reasonable to say that our jobs and work environments greatly influence how happy we are.

In no other time in history has the CEO’s job been as difficult or as significant as it is now. Companies are changing how we engage with the environment, from medical to transportation to education and many other aspects of our daily lives. The development of corporate profits and strong balance sheets are no longer important considerations in company management. Business leaders must create workplaces where people can feel included, accepted, at ease, and confident in their job and the company they work for.

Spiritual principles are important because they help me maintain a feeling of well-being in my personal and professional life. When it comes to business and spirituality, it’s strange to see the two terms used together at all. When you first look at them, they seem to be at variance with one another. In any case, I am a strong believer that spirituality can be an effective managerial tool. When running a business, you need to the same level of commitment and belief in a higher force that you have in your own spiritual life.

The term "spirit" is derived from the Latin word spiritus, which means "breath." Its most basic definition is "the essential element or motivating energy typically considered to exist inside living creatures." The idea of spirituality is sometimes conflated with religious convictions, which is a mistake. There's a big difference between spirituality and religious belief, and the two have nothing in common.

Your religious beliefs and traditions aren't yours to keep; they belong to a community of people who share them. It is only inside yourself that spirituality can be found. Everyone has their unique interpretation of what it's like to be a part of this community. It entails going inside yourself and developing a system of beliefs that describes a process within your temperament and personality. Nobody can tell you exactly how to pursue spirituality, even though only you can.

When it comes to employment, things have changed dramatically. It's no longer possible to think of work as something apart from oneself. An individual's employment is increasingly considered part of that person's personality. Considering this, most individuals consider work to be the last area to think about spiritual practice. "Work is worship," as the great English philosopher Thomas Carlyle once put it. A work well done becomes adoration when done with quality, honesty, and dedication. In contrast, the Hebrew term 'Avodah' (pronounced ah-vod-ah) is rendered as both employment and worship in the English translation of the Bible.

Working with a positive mindset goes a long way. For those who want to build a spiritual life, putting their best efforts into service to others is the best way to do it. It is possible to modify our job if we invest our hearts and souls. At that point, our position has the potential to change us.

According to a growing body of studies, integrating moral and spiritual principles into the business can boost efficiency, profitability, job satisfaction, consumer loyalty, and company reputation. Combining spirituality into its operations becomes more than just an impersonal corporate shell. A company without a soul is headed to failure. An organization concerned with increasing its bottom line is more likely to be unsuccessful in the long run. Businesses that gained from the Golden Era of Industrialization and prospered, only to lose their path because they misplaced their spirit, are many instances in the past.

Businesses established in the early 1990s and after the beginning of the millennium appear to be more mindful of this. Several enterprises have effectively blended spirituality into their environment and demonstrate this via their dedication to the three pillars of the balanced scorecard.

Purpose

It’s human nature to want to become a component of anything more significant than oneself alone. Employees want to feel like they’re a part of something bigger than themselves, that they’re making a difference. When it comes to their reputation, older workers want to understand. Youngsters are searching for work environments that are versatile and supportive of professional progress. It is common for people to be motivated by a feeling of mission. Those who work for a company with a clear objective and a meaningful mission are encouraged to work to support the company’s development and success.

People

People are often cited as one of the most critical assets by company executives. Real-world practitioners understand the value of investing in their workforce. Developing people isn't always fun, and it can be a difficult job at times. Serving others comes naturally to servant leaders who comprehend the principle of "service over self." These leaders acknowledge that when you help your employees, they will reach your target audience. A company's ability to retain its best employees is one of its most valuable assets.

Planet

Many businesses are related to the development in light of rising concern about the exhaustion of the planet's finite resources. To leave a lasting legacy for future generations, they know that protecting the present is essential. Companies with consciousness are making efforts to lessen or remove their environmental impact, no matter how difficult it may be.

The Bottom Line

It is encouraging to see an increasing number of businesses openly addressing spirituality as an intrinsic element of their workplace culture since this is becoming more common. They're demonstrating that having a spiritual outlook can really benefit your business, not hurt it.

When you are passionate about what you do, you will not have to perform a solo day in your entire life. For another perspective, consider the words of poet Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet: 'Work is love expressed.'