Finding Spirituality at Work Through Employee Volunteerism

Abstract

Spirituality at the workplace (SAW) is about individuals and organizations seeing work as a means of spiritual fulfilment. It includes individuals’ connectedness with the society and being true to themselves and their integral values. Organizations have an increased appreciation for people bringing their whole self to work. There is a place at work not only for intellect, talent, physical work, and emotions but also for the ‘spirit’ of the person. The SAW movement is gaining momentum by the recognition that providing opportunities to employees for nourishing their spiritual well-being is good for business. Employee volunteerism can be a vital facet of this practice. Two perspectives of employee volunteerism, namely, compensatory and spillover effect, have been examined in this chapter in relation to workplace spirituality. Organization involvement in employee volunteerism is on the rise lately (Rodell, Breitsohl, Schroder, and Keating (2016) as any investment in employees’ spiritual fulfilment is known to result in increased employee engagement, performance, and job satisfaction.