Designing Spiritual Integration at Workplace

Abstract
Spirituality has a wide range of perspectives ( at the work place ?). While some say it is
prayer, meditation or the gut at work, the others feel it is integrity and quality of work.
Some people are of the opinion that serving society or being socially responsible is
spirituality.

A Spiritual Organization is the one which focuses on the purpose and objectives and
promotes the trust of culture and openness (Robbins et.al.(2011). While spirituality enables
us to continuously find answers, the spiritual quotient is the ability of an individual to see
his personal vision and the ensuing endeavour to achieve the same through the prism of
larger good to the society, bringing good health and happiness to himself and the world at
large. It is believed that spirituality helps to develop an individual’s in depth
understanding to his approach towards work and life. Spiritual workplace creates a
culture that recognises the employees’ spirit at work, enhancing organizational health and
climate. Dynamic workplace and the millennial work force desiring instant gratification is
a challenge for organisations and integration of spirituality can be a benefit. The above
cited reasons make it an obvious need for spiritual integration at work place leading to
excellence in achievement and organizational sustainability.

The current research attempts to unearth the spirituality benefits at workplace and
successful practices adopted by organizations. Alongside, the study also tries to investigate
the challenges and issues in the paradigm shift towards creation of spiritually integrated
workplace.
Key words: Spirituality, Spiritual quotient, workplace, Organizational health,
Integration, wellness at workplace,meditation.

Introduction
Spirituality has developed and expanded over a period of time. Though there are myriad
meanings and definitions associated with this, at the core it signifies the mental aspects of
life than material aspects of life. It brings a sense of connection to something bigger than
ourselves. As Sri Aurobindo mentions “All connection with the self, the higher
consciousness and divine are termed as “Spiritual”.
Spirituality at the workplace helps employees reflect their experiences to approach their
work with sense of meaning, purpose, community and transcendence at workplace. At the
organizational level, spirituality is defined as the culture that promotes employees
experience of transcendence through work process, facilitating their sense of
connectedness to others in a way that provides feelings of completeness and joy.

Finally, the growing interest in spirituality is evident in corporations, corporate meeting

rooms, and the business world as well. For example, a growing numbers of organizations,
including large corporations such as Intel, Coca-Cola, Boeing, and Sears, are reported to
have incorporated spirituality in their workplaces, strategies, or cultures (Burack, 1999;
Gogoi, 2005; Konz and Ryan, 1999, Wagner Marsh, and Conley, 1999).

Literature Review
The Literature review is organized as below:
Workplace Spirituality is a movement that began in the early 1920s. It emerged as a grass
roots movement with individual seeking to live their faith / and or spiritual values in the
workplace. Spirituality is a state of experience that can provide individuals with direction
meaning, or provide feelings of understanding, support, inner wholeness or connectedness.
Spirituality in the workplace means that employees find nourishment for both vertical and
horizontal dimensions of their spirituality at work . Spirituality is often understood as
complete renunciation of desires. Going to temples, observing a fast may not necessarily
make a spiritual person. While we looked at the common meaning and understanding of
the spirituality, it is also worth quoting the fundamental duties enshrined in Indian
Constitution. The following fundamental duties are worth mentioning here to delve into the
topic further.,
 To develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform.
 According to the 86th constitutional amendment in 2002, it is the duty of the people of
India to adapt to make India a safer place to live, to be clean and make the surrounding
clean and not to hurt anybody physically and mentally.

This clearly tells us to imbibe the spirit of inquiry and reform as a way of life. The five
traits of spirituality are flexibility as opposed to obstinacy that only you are right, ability to
ask questions, seeker of true knowledge, causing no harm to others, ability to learn from
hardships and mitigate their effect in future and unshakeable belief in the power of your
mind, developing humility and detachment.

This gives us a chance to explore the necessity of spirituality in the workplace and the
ways to imbibe this. Spirituality in the workplace is about individuals and organizations
seeing work as a spiritual path, as an opportunity to grow and to contribute to society in a
meaningful way. It is about care, compassion and support of others: about integrity and
people being true to themselves and others. In a way, it is about individuals and
organizations attempting to live their values more fully in the work they do. Today,
organizations are looking for newer and newer sources of competitive advantage
(Aravamudhan and Krishnaveni, 2014).

Duchon and Plowman (2005, p. 807) note ‘‘since the late 1990s publications such as Wall
Street Journal, Business Week, Fortune and others have reported a growing desire among
employees for meaning and purpose at work, for a spiritual dimension to organizational
life.’’ Researchers have noted the importance of workplace spirituality for organizations as
well. Employees are showing an enthusiasm to be well connected to the workplace and
find meaningfulness of their work in the bigger picture.

Inner life of an employee, meaningful work and sense of belonging to the community are
the three essential components of workplace spirituality (Ashmos and Duchon (2000).
Corporations are working towards employee well-being and designing work with purpose
in order to achieve a holistic growth. Sheep (2004) conceptualized spirituality at workplace
as having four components—self-workplace integration, meaning in work, transcendence
of self and development of one’s inner life at work. The spirituality at the individual level
will help the employee to perform his work with a more connected approach as he will be
able to understand his role in the big gamut of the organization. The Society depends on
interdependence of its constituents including individuals to function properly.

Employees’ experiences of spirituality at work are categorized into six categories—

physical, affective, cognitive, interpersonal, spiritual and mystical. Transcendence
(Kinjerski and Skrypnek 2004). Pawar (2009) emphasized on employees’ experience of
self-transcendence and also suggested that transformational leadership, organizational
citizenship behaviour, organizational support and organizational justice are the precursors
for workplace spirituality

Sheep (2006) study suggested that workplace spirituality can introduce certain ethical
issues and dilemmas. It is also important to understand the ways to introduce spirituality in
the work place. Spiritual actions include truthfulness in the workplace and also extend
itself through conscience-based actions directed towards betterment and in the interest of
all living beings. In a job, truthful actions could be performed, and important decisions
should be taken bearing in mind the interest of every living being. For example, if one is
working as a project leader, he or she should also consider the humane side (i.e., how
specific project may benefit people, animals and environment) and not only the
commercial side. Bypassing the egoistic side - selfish desires - while performing truthful
actions, should be done in order to see the authenticity of its actions (Corner, 2009).
Justifiable behaviours in the interest of others that may help in development also constitute
truthfulness. Thus, inculcating truthfulness in workplaces could create an equitable and
benevolent atmosphere, which may foster spirituality through righteousness and peace.

The Spiritual practices in organization helps to attain more profitability and productivity to
the organizations and gives a good experience to the customers especially in banking
industries where customers need to have a wow experience. Pandey, Gupta and Arora
(2009b) found a positive impact of spiritual climate of organization on customer
experience of employees’ service in the banking industry.

Spirituality at work is also conceptualized and operationalized at the group level in the
form of spiritual climate which is signified by meaningfulness and meditative experience at
work, sense of community, authenticity and working with a concern for larger social and
natural environment (Pandey, Gupta, & Arora, 2009a).

Kolodinsky, Giacalone and Jurkiewicz (2008) found that organizational spirituality is

positively associated with job involvement, organizational identification, reward
satisfaction and negatively related to organizational frustration.

Pandey and colleagues have shown the positive association of spiritual climate on learning
(Pandey, Gupta, & Kumar, 2016) and innovative behaviour in teams (Pandey, Gupta, &
Gupta, 2017). Gangadharan and Welbourne (2016) noted that workplace spirituality
facilitates resilience and manages problems of emotional labour. Ho et al. (2016)
expounded that spiritual practices can be potentially protective against burnout and mental
health concerns.

The study on Relationship between workplace spirituality, job satisfaction and

Organizational Citizenship behaviours by Shibani et al(2017) aims to investigate the
relationships between workplace spirituality, job satisfaction and organizational
citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Shibani ‘s study (2017) examined the relationship between
the three workplace spirituality components – meaning and purpose in work, recognition of
an inner life or spirit and interconnectedness with OCBs, mediated by the job satisfaction
experienced by the employees, in the context of an Indian private sector bank. A sample
consisting of 613 banking employees is studied. The results provided considerable support
that there is appositive relationship between workplace spirituality and organizational
citizenship behaviour.

Milliman et al. (2003) reported the encouraging role of workplace spirituality in building
unity within organizations, which leads to greater teamwork, collaboration and reduced
occurrences of absenteeism and employee turnover. Being in touch with our “real self”
makes us more relaxed, energized and committed toward our goals (Pandey et al., 2009),
and this makes one wanting to go beyond the identified “in-role” behaviors to demonstrate
“extra-role” behaviors, doing things that work in favor of the organization or the work unit.
Workplace spirituality when evidenced by employees, results in job satisfaction (Chawla
and Guda, 2010) and encourages them to demonstrate extra-role, pro-social behaviors.

Miller and Ewest (2010) described it as the dimension in human experience that the
individual attempts to place self, in a broader context. This is the recognition that there
exists a soul, a spirit, in all human beings (FerreiraVasconcelos, 2010). The workplace is a
place to express various facets of their personality and find a sense of meaning in the work
and bring their whole self (Ashmos and Duchon, 2000; Fairholm, 1996). Duchon and
Plowman (2005) also noted that the workplace can be important for employees if they find
the proper conditions that will enable them to express their inner lives. It is a spiritual
identity and the recognition of a power greater than the physical self (Liu and Robertson,
2011); inner life is transcendence over the ego (Giacalone and Jurkiewicz, 2010).

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs advocates that when we work spiritually, it is like adding
energy to work and this suggests that spirituality brings more vitality insights and care
adding to job satisfaction. By deriving a sense of meaningfulness of one’s work, one is
expected to see the organization in excellent light.

Need for the study

There is considerable research about the workplace spirituality and performance,
connectedness to the work, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. However,
there is a limited knowledge reported in terms of the kind of spiritual programs conducted
in the organizations and the challenges to sustain such programs. Hence this research
attempts to study the organizations who are reported to have been inculcating spiritual
programs since years and the challenges faced by them in such initiatives.
Research objectives

Based on the literature review, the following objectives of the study have been proposed:

1. To understand how organizations are initiating and integrating spiritual practices for
their employees
2. To explore the benefits of spiritual practices to the organizations and employees.
3. To identify the challenges associated with the implementation of spiritual practices in
the organization and suggest the ways to overcome them
 The Research Design is given below:

Fig. 3.1 : An Exploratory Research Design

To understand the spiritual practices and programs integrated in R B cutters, Mumbai

Problem Statement
What kind of Spiritual practices are followed in
RB cutters and the benefits from the program

Research Research
Objectives Approach

1. To understand the spiritual Purpose of the study

practices followed the Exploration
organization
Development of Interview script

2. To understand the benefits Semi Structured interviews with

from the spiritual programs initiators of the program
conducted in the
organization
Development of the case study
protocol
3. To identify the challenges
associated with the
R. B. Cutter Pvt. Ltd. Reliance Retail Ltd.
spiritual programs in the
organization and the way
to overcome them
Results and conclusions
(Critical, Success, Failure &
Challenges)

The Research approach followed by the researchers is case study approach. The
researchers have in their initial discussion with corporates to understand if the spiritual
programs are followed in their organizations. The initial discussion was with the HR
personnel from various organizations. In the process, the researchers identified two
industries who are known to have been following spiritual programs in their organizations.
The following organizations were approached and they were willing to share the details of
the programs.

1. Reliance Industries Ltd

2. RB Cutters Private Ltd
“Simple living leading to increased satisfaction”, this is my state of mind today says Mr
Vikas from RIL who says he invented himself through the spiritual exercises that they have
in their organization.
The analysis of spirituality at workplace is an outcome of two case studies , one on RIL
and the other on RB Cutters, that brought out insights on the spiritual practices followed by
these organizations for wellness of their employees and a conducive work environment.
On interviewing about 42 employees, it was found they could relate to the benefits they felt
through consistent spiritual practices. The initiators of the spiritual practices, Mr Rajagopal
from RIL and Ms Sangita Mehrotra from RB Cutters were also interviewed, and they
narrated the delightful transformation which overweighed the challenges posed in
implementing the spiritual practices.

In the interview with the management, the researchers tried to understand the following
aspects-

 Reasons for initiation of the spiritual programs

 kind of spiritual programs followed
 Period or duration of the spiritual program
 Challenges in the spirituality journey

The summary of all the responses are mentioned here.

Case A- Reliance Industries Ltd
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is an Indian conglomerate holding
company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Reliance owns businesses across
India engaged in energy, petrochemicals, textiles, natural resources, retail, and
telecommunications. Reliance is one of the most profitable companies in India, which is
ranked 148th on the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's biggest corporations as of 2018.
RIL comprises of Reliance Retail, Jio, Network 18, Jio Saavn, LYE, Hathway and DEN
Networks. The company has more than one lakh employees across its various offices.
The Researchers approached Mr Rajagopal , CFO of Reliance Retail and Mr Vikas Bonde ,
VP Reliance Jio who together organize the spiritual development program for the
employees. Mr Rajagopal said, “The initiative was started more than 4 years back when
Heartfulness institute was keen to reach out to masses (Corporates/ Colleges etc) and there
was a platform available in Reliance in terms of number and need of employees to be calm
and stress free at work place”
Spirituality at RIL:
At RIL, Heartfulness is the Spiritual Programs organized through a congregation of the
employees twice during the week with a common purpose of self development. Mr
Rajagopal said,”We have conducted three days Heartfulness meditation sessions in the
main office (RCP – Mumbai) and other branches in Mumbai for initiating and guiding the
employees to embrace meditation. Also we covered for more than 1000 Retail stores across
India and JIO centres, main plants (Jamnagar, Hazira, Nagothane, Patalganga, Silvassa etc)
in the basic three days meditation of Heartfulness”. While this is not made mandatory , he
talks about those fortunate ones who realize the wonderful path to peace and prosperity.

Conduct of the spiritual program:

Three day programs in RCP are conducted once in 4 months during special occasions like
Yoga Day, New Year etc. and at other workplaces, it is done once annually . Three days
program includes – explaining about the practice of meditation, benefits in interactive way
with videos and later providing practical experience in meditation, cleaning and prayer .
Feedback is obtained during the program everyday and doubts are cleared to the best
extent. Follow up weekly group sessions happen regularly in RCP and Nagothane which is
a 40 minutes duration. There is no compulsion to attend the program , instead it is purely
voluntary. However reminders are sent by mass mailers, WhatsApp , word of mouth etc to
inform the program details and reach out to maximum employees.

Benefits of spiritual practice at RIL:

Participants had many positive experiences to narrate about Heartfulness Meditation at RIL
which was divided between benefits for self and benefits observed from organization’s
perspective.
Benefits for self as per respondents of RIL: Most of them were of the view that mind felt
fresh and the lingering effect of even an hour’s spiritual exercise lasted for the whole day.
There is peace and blissful feeling said some of the participants. Stress and anger reduction
is a positive change noticed by some. Expectation management is much easier and there is
better understanding of people . Solutions for problems is far easier. Some vouched that
they were able to handle pressure with ease and mastered the art to remain calm during
anxiety.
Benefits observed by Initiators/ Management: Improved work efficiency and better
people coordination was a change felt by the Manager. Improvement in inter-personal
relations is another outcome of the program. Another observation was the calming effect
the program had on the employees who were regular at spiritual practice. It was also
observed that some of the employees had developed better time management skills. Mr
Rajagopal confessed that it is not very easy to observe behaviors, but the feedback he got
from employees was that they felt calmer at work place, are ready to accept situations and
also able to fight their battle of life better.

Challenges faced by Initiators:

Mr Rajagopal said,” For initiating the Program, we need HR or administrative
department’s approval and they have to be convinced about the benefits of the program.
When people in administration change, we are again left with convincing the replaced
person”. Encouraging administration to promote such practices is another challenge. But at
RIL they have been able to overcome such challenges since they saw good number of
employees attending the sessions. He said that since there is no cost attached, people are
less apprehensive. He said that one of the greatest challenge is sustenance of the practice ,
due to lack of regularity and interest to practice from seekers side. Seekers wish instant
results many a times and get doubtful about the transformation that would eventually take
place through regular practice. Not prioritizing and finding it difficult to take time out of
their office schedule are other challenges. Out of thousands of employees who get regular
notifications about the spiritual practice , only fifty employees are regular for the weekly
sessions at RCP, he said . So even if organisations are willing to set aside time for their
employees’ spiritual growth, only a handful are willing to take benefit of this glorious path.

Case B- RB Cutters Private Limited

The RB Cutters Private Limited is a manufacturing arm of Rosy Blue. This is one of the
only organized large scale diamond polishing factory in Mumbai. Their production is
tailor-made to customer requirements. The organization is well-known in the diamond
industry. The various categories of employees are as below:

Workers 600
Supervisors 50
Managers 20
Assorters 100
Service Staff 30

The Head HR , Ms.Sangita Mehrotra is the initiator of the Spiritual Program at RB Cutters
.The researchers conducted a semi structured interview with few business heads and the
supervisors and workers who were a part of the spiritual program for more than five years.
The summary of all the responses are mentioned here.
:Initiation of the spiritual programs – Management Perspective

The Organization is known to have been practicing the spiritual programs since last ten
years. The main reason for initiating such programs as mentioned by Ms Sangita is that
their top management encourages conflict free environment and they believe that
spirituality can bring peace to the work environment and also help employees cope with
the existing cut throat competition. The Organization has started this practice by initiating
sessions with Brahma kumaris.. The sessions for guidance are paced out once in 3 months
and this has been an ongoing practice in the organization. The other reasons for conducting
spiritual programs is to encourage workers in a constructive way and to develop them into
good human beings. The Organization believes that developing good human beings is a
key corporate responsibility and they have to continuously work towards this objective.

Duration of the programs and Benefits from Organization’s perspective

The programs are conducted once in 3 months and the batches of workers are covered in a
weeks’ time. The sessions carried out are on Life Enrichment, Motivation, Decision
making, Team-work, Peace at Self etc. The Organization also encourages the employees’
spouse to attend the sessions so that personal and work life balance is maintained. Apart
from the spiritual training practice at their workplace, the business heads and supervisors
are also sent for a one week program to the Brahmakumari centre. The sessions there are
on meditation and modules like Anger Management, Right Thinking etc .

Mornings at the office of RB Cutters begin with discourse or prayer played on a central
audio which is audible at all the work stations of the employees. . A ten- minute meditation
session is a regular practice. This practice is called “Traffic Control” which is followed at
11.00am and 3.00pm every day. During this time, there is melodious music played from
the central audio system during which the employees meditate for ten minutes.

Benefits for employees of RB Cutters: While the employees were asked about benefits of
the spiritual program, they said that they were very happy to be a part of these programs
conducted by Brahmakumaris. The “traffic control” which they termed for excess
thoughts and a cluttered mind could be stopped for some time through the practice. This
also enabled them to cope up with the work pressure and helped better decision making.
Few employees mentioned that these programs also had a lasting impact as the sessions
were on positivity and how to think and act right. This helped them to change their
thinking perspective. On being asked if they enjoyed the program, we had a unanimous
positive response. Happiness, bliss, peaceful feeling, better connect with oneself, were
some of the common responses gathered from the employees.
Benefits observed by Management: The employers felt that the employees were able to
add meaningfulness to their work and empathize their colleagues and realize the
importance to be united as a team. The management felt it helped them to manage personal
and professional turmoil. Also, few other benefits were anger management, right way of
communicating with subordinates and supervisors and colleagues and handling conflicts in
the workplace.

Challenges for the initiators

The researchers asked the initiators about the challenges in implementing and executing
these spiritual programs. The Management had to take a call on whether the workers who
were paid on a piece rate system should lose on few hours of productive work if they
practiced meditation at their workplace. So instead of viewing it as number of hours lost,
the organization looked at this as an investment on human resources. This thought process
was well received by the employees and also the top management for the sustenance of
these programs. There were some employees who connected the practice to religion and
 they had to be counselled that meditation and high life values are not connected to religion.
There were other few who felt that such practices were conflicting with their choice of life
style, so the management made it optional for them.

Recommendations of the research :

It was found that spirituality at workplace can be embedded to create a conducive
environment with people who are better connected with their own self or spirit . The
respondents felt that there was a purpose driven life that was being led by their own
connectedness with self. It has led to improvement of skills like interpersonal skills, team
skills , time management and self management skills. “ Self to whole approach” is a
natural with those who are consistently practicing meditation . But without the support of
the senior management, it will be difficult for organisations to bring in such practices
because these cost time , money and efforts.
Heartfulness meditation is a simple way of connecting ones’ heart to divine light or source.
If the heart is energized , the mind is equipped to think wiser. Decisions will be balanced
and the person will be chaos-free. Organisations can bring in this simple form of
meditation that has zero religious implications and can make their employees confident ,
independent , productive and most importantly better human beings.
The Brahma Kumaris too teach a form of meditation through which people are encouraged
to purify their minds. This may be done by sitting tranquilly, then making affirmations
regarding the eternal nature of the soul, the original purity of one's nature, and the nature of
God.
The ten minutes relaxation and meditation technique can be greatly beneficial for
organisations and their employees. This short divine break called “traffic control” followed
by RB Cutters is excellent to clear the thought-congested mind, thus paving way for calmer
and balanced state at life and work.

The case study of RIL and RB Cutters brought out the following benefits to both
employers and employees. Thus it can be beneficial to organization and families of
employees too.

Workplace spirituality

Employers Employees

Profitability Self to the

whole
Productivity Integrity

Pro-Social
Benevolent
Behaviour
Atmosphere

Conclusion: It is important to realize that workplace is not solely business, but beyond.
It is a place of sanctity where an employee spends major portion of the day. Management
needs to cater to the deeper needs of human mind and heart. Science and research may fail
to draw connection between spirituality and profit , but thoughtful business houses have
realised the importance of spirituality at workplace. They are wanting to nurture a happier
workplace with satisfied employees. Spiritual quotient has become a crucial component to
employee welfare and success of organizations, which has become an inclusion in today’s
management trends

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