Productivity Through Spirituality

In the era of globalization, organizations are constantly facing structural changes, stiff competition and ambiguous complexities. In the present scenario organizations are inclined to expand, with increased profit and ultimately desire to increase shareholders value. Organizations are forced to be more productive, enhanced productivity, effective and efficient use of human and non human resources is the need of the hour. Employees are expected to increase production within a given time frame with the same level of resources, which results in stress and burn out, increasing attrition rate, loss of loyalty and creativity, grievances among employees, low morale, absenteeism and increased health compensation expenditure.

People spend major part of their life at the work place. Here they develop their community, imbibe values and contribute to the development of society. Workplace environment also affects their life post work place so the workplace should be more than just a mere survival ground, it should be something more than just collecting the pay cheque, it should be a place of livelihood, a place where employees enjoy working and get closer to their life's goal.

All the corporate challenges and creating a better, productive and profitable workplace can find its roots in spirituality. A spiritually oriented workplace can create wonders by increasing productivity and provide cutting edge to the organization.

We have progressed like no other. We have achieved remarkable progress in the field of science and technology. We earlier presumed that science could solve all the problems, but we are lacking in the fundamentals. We forget the importance of values which are the source of all problems.

Spirituality includes a sense of connection to something larger than ourselves and it involves a search for meaning and purpose in life. Spirituality is associated with sympathy love, play, forgiveness, trust, intelligence, intuition, faith, creativity and a sense of community. Spirituality includes meaningful and purposeful work; it is a means not an end. It is all about ways of performing with values. Spiritual practices develop compassion, wisdom and energy at the workplace which leads to improved productivity.

The spiritual environment is not just about setting and implementing rules, it deals with sense of community, adding meaning and helping employees to discover their life's purpose, it connects employee's purpose with the organizational purpose. In a spiritual environment employees can build up their life's work by creation of innovation, creativity, loyalty and self reliance. It creates such a culture within the organization that integrates human values with all dimensions of the organization including decisions, functions and policies, Such a culture helps in organizational learning, enhances quality of life along with physical and mental well being.

Employees in the spiritual environment find themselves more satisfied and perform better, which reduce grievances, attrition rate and absenteeism. Employees are more responsible and ethical at their work. Spirituality helps employees to find meaning in their work, they show job commitment and they are clearer about the vision, mission and purpose of their job, organization and life in general.

Spiritual environment enriches intelligence and intuition which are very important for the success of any business. Spiritual environment induces ethics and values, customers also trust ethical organizations. Spiritual workplace also nurtures hidden talent and brilliance which results in a deep sense of belongingness.

To create spiritual environment some organizations have provisions for Morning Prayer, meditation classes, meditative silence before meetings and also provide yoga classes for employees. To develop spiritual environment workers and employees should be treated in a responsive and caring way, organizations should focus on environment enhancement, community service and strategize ways of contributing to create a better world.