Abstract
Spirituality in the workplace is a concept that has become widespread in the recent decades in academic literature, whereby finding meaning has been the core purpose and objective in the studies done. Employees want to experience greater meaning at work as they spend most of their waking time working and want more than just monetary gain from the work they perform. Research demonstrates that spirituality may be one of the routes to finding greater meaning in the workplace. Organisations are however faced with obstacles that delay the incorporation of spirituality in the workplace. These obstacles include lack of understanding of the concept of spirituality and the expectation that employees only bring part of themselves to work. This may partly be due to organisations being results driven and fixated to the bottom line.
The purpose of the study is to establish why organisations delay the incorporation of spirituality in the workplace. A qualitative study was done by conducting semi-structured interviews with nine participants that have been in a leadership role for over five years. Data analysis was done using ATLAS.ti, a computer assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) tool where themes and sub-themes emerged through a thematic analysis technique. The findings indicate that some of the obstacles that organisations face that delay the incorporation of spirituality in the workplace include understanding of the concept of spirituality, whereby spirituality is linked to religion and ancestral beliefs by participants, results-driven organisations, and organisations that do not acknowledge employees as spirited beings. The findings further indicate spiritual disciplines such as reflection, meditation and gratitude as prevalent disciplines practiced by employees to nurture their spiritual life dimension in the workplace. This may assist organisations to practically incorporate spirituality in the workplace. Keywords: Spirituality, Meaning, Workplace Spirituality.