Abstract
M.Phil.
People are living in a stressful world, which is characterised by materialism, narrow self-centeredness, lack of meaning and dearth commitment (1.1). This results in people loosing touch of their spiritual core. They are searching for meaning and purpose in their lives, both at home and at work. Furthermore, companies seem not to take into account that people are more than just mind and body, with unique and special gifts. Companies treat people as numbers and not as people (1.2). The purpose of this study was to create an understanding of the concept spirituality and secondly to understand how employees experience spiritual fulfilment in the workplace and if the employer addresses their spiritual needs (as per 1.3). The study consequently aimed to describe the key elements of the concept spirituality in the workplace (as per Chapter 2), in an attempt to identify and disclose the current experience of spiritual fulfilment in the workplace (described in Chapter 3) — which might aid us in increasing employee productivity. The research has been done from a Personal and Professional Leadership perspective (1.6). This perspective is based on the assumption that human beings have an ongoing commitment and accompaniment to growth and dev'elopment, through self-knowledge and self-awareness, finding a purpose, realising one's full potential and co-operation with and adding value to other people's lives. In endeavoring to address the study's problem, the researcher subsequently decided to make use of a hermeneutic phenomenological research strategy, and to conduct an extensive literature review, word and concept analysis as well as focus group and individual interviews in order to meet the research objectives. The result of the literature study has consequently been described in Chapter 2 in an attempt to: meet the research objective (1.4) of what can be seen as the spiritual needs of workers, as well as to establish the link between the productivity of the workers and their spiritual fulfilment.