Yves here. I hate to be a curmudgeon, but people’s private practices are and should remain their own business. And I take a dimmer view of companies trying to promote particular types of behavior, even when they sound benign, like meditation.
The reason for the upsurge in the rise in corporations jumping on New Age-y bandwagons is first that cults are very effective businesses (witness Goldman and Bain in their heydays; I am not sure they’ve been able to maintain the resulting intense internal conformity as they’ve grown). Second is that mindfulness and other “enlightened” practices take a very dim view of expressions of anger or other harsher forms of defending one’s boundaries. Inculcating agreeableness as a proof of being more “evolved” or “emotionally mature” helps promote a compliant workforce.
In fairness, the author’s skepticism extends to pointing out that these programs are really newfangled ways to try to increase productivity and get employees to over-invest in work relative to their personal life. The old exhortation used to be “Passion”. The new one is more explicit: “Bringing your whole self to work.” Gah!
By Raysa Geaquinto Rocha, Assistant Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and lecturer, European Academy of Management (EURAM). Originally published at The Conversation
In an age when home offices, hybrid work arrangements and blurred boundaries between work and personal life are the norm, a recently established narrative is intensifying: the integration of spirituality into business.
This idea involves deliberately incorporating personal values and meaningful purpose into all aspects of organisational life – from individual expression to workplace practices and corporate identity. It’s an approach that seeks to cultivate environments where employees can find deeper meaning in their work while contributing to both economic and social progress, as my past research in the Journal of Business Ethics shows.
Spirituality in business transcends traditional management methods by acknowledging the inner lives of workers, promoting their personal growth and fostering genuine community connections. According to a 2016 interview with Eileen Fisher, the founder and then CEO of a $450-million fashion brand, company meetings opened with the ring of a meditation bell followed by a minute of silence. Fisher said the practice allows employees “to get in touch with what they’re there for and what matters to them and show up a little differently” and has contributed to the company’s recognised leadership in sustainability and women’s advocacy.
But are all corporate efforts like these genuine attempts to foster well-being, or can they instead be strategies to rebrand productivity demands?
Spiritual Well-Being in Business
The incorporation of spirituality into the workplace represents a shift in how businesses approach leadership, employee wellbeing and corporate culture.
Take ice-cream maker Ben & Jerry’s partnership with Greyston Bakery, a leader in social enterprise. Under their “linked prosperity” model, Ben & Jerry’s sources all brownies for its Chocolate Fudge Brownie flavour from Greyston, which operates with an “open hiring” policy that does not require a background check for applicants and provides “help with child care, housing and ESL (English as a second language) classes”. The partnership shows how valuing human dignity and community empowerment can reshape conventional business practices into drivers of social change.
Spiritual integration manifests in plenty of other ways, too. Morning gatherings can become spaces for shared reflection rather than mere status updates. Dedicated quiet rooms can offer sanctuary for contemplation or prayer. Through mentorship relationships and community service initiatives, workplaces can evolve into environments where individuals can explore deeper questions about purpose. US outdoor clothing company Patagonia describes how it offers paid environmental internships and flexible policies that enable employees to align their work lives with how they see their authentic selves. These offerings reflect the idea that while people come to work to earn a living, they stay and thrive when work nourishes their spirit.
The trend of integrating spirituality into the workplace taps into the practical wisdom of spiritual traditions, honed over millennia, to foster attributes like mindfulness, compassion and interconnectedness. But despite its benefits, integration – or lip service to it – risks becoming a convenient excuse for businesses to shift the responsibility for stress and burn-out onto employees instead of addressing systemic issues.
The rise and fall of WeWork illustrates this phenomenon. As documented in both Hulu’s “WeWork: or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn” and Apple TV+’s dramatic series “WeCrashed”, the workspace company masterfully leveraged spiritual rhetoric to attract young professionals. While the company promoted meditation spaces and wellness initiatives, these benefits masked issues including unsustainable work expectations, questionable management practices and a sexual assault claim. The disconnect between WeWork’s offerings and operational reality demonstrates how companies can appropriate spiritual practices only as a veneer.
When Suits Start Talking Spirit
When McKinsey & Company, a US management consulting firm that epitomizes corporate pragmatism, releases a podcast titled “Beyond 9 to 5: The power of spiritual health in the workplace”, it is clear that spirituality in business has moved beyond the fringe.
McKinsey’s global survey of 41,000 respondents, detailed in their May 2024 report “In search of self and something bigger: A spiritual health exploration”, found that spiritual health matters deeply to employees. But does this data reflect a genuine commitment to spirituality, or is it just a reflection of its currency in the corporate world?
After almost half a century of research on spirituality in business, it has become a mature field. The Academy of Management, “an association for management and organizational scholars”, recognised Management, Spirituality, and Religion as a Division, “[reflecting] a broad range of member interests”. Still, the corporate world’s interest is raising eyebrows: the suspicion remains that spirituality is merely being repackaged as a tool for enhancing productivity. In his 2019 book “McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality”, Ronald Purser illustrates this concern through Google’s “Search Inside Yourself” programme. While marketed as a path to employee wellness, the initiative exemplifies how meditation and mindfulness can be transformed into performance-enhancement tools, asking workers to develop “resilience” rather than addressing the root causes of workplace stress.
The Whole Self at Work
The concept of bringing one’s “whole self” to work – a cornerstone of the Industry 5.0 concept promoted by the European Commission – emphasises employee authenticity. The idea of spirituality in the workplace intertwines with the idea of authentic self-expression, encompassing the recognition of one’s beliefs, values and quest for deeper meaning. These are dimensions historically excluded from professional settings. The idea is to create an environment where people can align their deepest motivations with their work.
While this ideal is noble in concept, it also raises complex questions about which aspects of our “whole selves” are appropriate to bring into the workplace. In 2015, the US Supreme Court ruled in favour of a job applicant whom the clothing company Abercrombie & Fitch refused to hire because her hijab conflicted with its dress code. Delta Airlines’ uniform policy revision last July illuminates the ongoing complexity of the issue. Following a controversy that began when a passenger made a social media post describing two flight attendants’ Palestinian flag pins – which were permitted under existing policy – as “Hamas badges”, the airline banned all national flag pins except US ones.
Juggling Multiple Selves
The promise of integrating our identities more seamlessly instead of compartmentalizing them features in the Apple TV series Severance. The show presents a dystopian take on work-life balance in which employees surgically separate their work and personal memories, inviting us to reflect on the identities we balance in our professional and personal lives. The character of Mark Scout, whose “innie” (work self) develops genuine connections with colleagues like Helly, demonstrates how even artificially separated selves seek authentic relationships and meaning. However, when these connections begin to flourish, employer Lumon Industries’ harsh punishments and control mechanisms kick in – suggesting that true workplace innovation and collaboration can only emerge when we’re allowed to bring our whole, unsevered selves to work.
By acknowledging and nurturing the various aspects of our personalities, we might attain new levels of connection in the workplace. But could the integration of spirituality and work lead to an environment where employees are perpetually “on”? A risk lies in creating a culture where work infiltrates every aspect of life, leaving no true respite. The very practices meant to nurture the spirit could paradoxically become tools that further blur the boundaries between professional obligations and personal renewal. A constant connection to work erodes personal boundaries, which can lead to stress and dissatisfaction that spills over into personal life. Addressing this “shadow side” is essential if we are to answer the question “Do you believe in life after work?” with a resounding yes.
A Balanced Approach
The integration of spirituality into business requires genuine commitment. While spiritual practices can bring multiple benefits, they must emerge from authentic values rather than serving as a quick fix for systemic issues.
Since the 1980s, when major corporations first explored Eastern spirituality, workplace spirituality has evolved into a $7.9 billion meditation market. But as companies invest in meditation apps and mindfulness programmes, they often fail to address the root causes of workplace stress and burn-out. Today, well-intentioned apps like CHILL Anywhererisk functioning as band-aids that place the burden of stress management on employees, instead of examining issues like unrealistic workloads, inadequate compensation, toxic leadership or prejudice.
Instrumentalizing spiritual practices into productivity tools fundamentally misses the point: true spirituality in business requires organizations to critically examine and transform the structural conditions that create employee suffering in the first place. Until companies commit to addressing these foundational issues, meditation rooms and mindfulness apps will remain superficial solutions that enable rather than challenge harmful workplace dynamics.
The future workplace should aim to harmonise profit and purpose, recognising that employee well-being is integral to long-term success. Spirituality in business manifests when organisations commit to both business excellence and human flourishing – addressing foundational concerns while nurturing deeper meaning and purpose. Only then can the promise of bringing our whole selves to work become a reality worth believing in.
24 comments
Comments are closed.
This spiritual strategy is the reason many CEOs on LinkedIn are now labeled as influencers. One example that stands out is a Pharma CEO. I remember he posted about the benefits of sleep—just as hundreds of employees were losing their jobs. Externally, the post was well-received. Internally, it was a different story. Internal company channels lit up with responses: “I was just fired. How do you think I sleep?”
This article also fails to address how this performative spirituality intensifies the grief of those being let go or during individual performance reviews. In theory, these reviews “assess” how aligned employees are to the values. In reality this is where employees are punished for bringing their “whole-self to work,” even if objectives are met.
This dove tails a little with sentiments expressed by JD Vance recently about wanting to Christianise the state, encouraging a hierarchy of ‘self reliant’ care, which becomes a justification for a state that disavows itself as having any duty of care to it’s people (except the most wealthy who’s interests it protects), Arnaud Bertrand commented on it yesterday https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1885601993429049574 Vance’s worldview would have had the Good Samaritan mind his own business and go home to their family.
It also recall the theories of Ivan Illich and how modern bureaucratic structure have their origin in the Catholic Church and monasteries, not to mention the spiritual themes and debates in Dostoyevsky’s the brother Karamazov (which explores the contrasts between socialism and faith) and the state expanding in its role to become the church (the essay having been written by the cynical, atheist and somewhat lost brother Ivan, I’ve just started reading it BTW)
This feels like a perversion of something sacred, not unlike a boss presuming to have intimate access to their employees, one’s spiritual practice is as intimate as any sexual act, we acknowledge the border of the body as sacrosanct, but not the mind or soul, that cuts deeper than a profit motive and if it isn’t your first foremost priority or done sincerely, it will ultimately reek of insincerity. An unpleasant antagonistic boss who just does like you would preferable to one asking you why you haven’t clocked in your 30 minutes per day mindfulness app time or asking you about your damn chakras. “Bullying is the sublime art of the guru” as Aleister Crowley remarked, the kind of egoism this kind of practice would cause in middle management who confuse their power with spiritual authority (spells on a psych ward are more concurrent than climbing the corporate ladder), it’s a recipe for hell on earth.
I saw a documentary about the monks of the Orthodox Church a few years ago, one monk said something very striking, that Christianity was a religion of rebellion and radical freedom before it became the official faith of the Roman Empire, at which point it became a religion of convention.
If a spirituality is perverted to being an instrument of control then it has ceased to be anything spiritual.
Considering the prevalence of dems in the PMC I think it’s a bit off to finger the veep as some sign of one parties guiding principle being ascendant…lots of atheist dems worship the almighty dollar and the meritocracy considers itself the chosen and those apostates who failed in their belief system deserved their descent.
Vladimir Putin used to take his mother to church on Sundays. Is this why Russia has flourished under his leadership?
I commented in another NC post this morning that the problem with snake oil stems from a lack of proper education, not insufficient healthcare regulation. Workplace spirituality is virtual snake oil and twice as useless.
Snake oil salesmen have a really good time when people are born in snake oil country and get snake oil education.
My mother made us go to Sunday School. And then took me to church on Sunday when I started resisting. It didn’t change her or me. But it sure made both of us very unhappy.
Maybe it was the wrong church.
I attended a 12 week group course (12 attendees) on Mindfulness courtesy of the NHS a few years ago. Within 20 minutes I was 99% sure I was one of 4 attendees for whom it would manifestly fail.
Each of us 4 had differing reasons, but a common theme was “this therapy is manifestly unsuitable for integrating into my job/life”. For example, one of the other 3 was a member of the emergency services; the idea of a 30 minute mental exercise after a traumatic RTA was a nonsense.
This course was all buying into the idea of a quick fix when the solution was more money/people, a work schedule that better fit workers’ lives and flexible, responsive, supportive management style to head off problems ASAP.
See Work Pray Code by Carolyn Chen, sociologist and associate professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley (and my neighbor). When work becomes religion in Silicon Valley. I believe Carolyn would tend to agree with Yves. A well written and documented book about how tech companies colonize employee’s lives.
Yves, apart from the reasons that you set out above, HR execs in extended, large firms are using these “wellness benefits”, e.g. twisted versions of Asian religious rituals, as mitigations for accusations of harassment and a more general culture of abuse in the workplace, especially for class actions or in stricter labor law jurisdictions. I’ve seen it done.
Wowsers, thanks.
Accountability sinks, pure and simple.
Liberal individualism -the “whole self”- is fundamentally incompatible with Buddhism, from which we get mindfulness. The concept of the self, itself, is in my view the latest secularization of the concept of the soul. Where, anatomically, is the soul located? Where is the ‘self’? This is by no means an educated statement, here, but it is my impression that in the more distant past one encounters the term ‘person’ in literature a lot more before all this self-ishness. A less abstract term.
Of course we should be mindful of capitalists using any and every means available to squeeze value out of labor, and of the continuing trend towards the commodification of every aspect of life, up to and including selling God.
In the circles I run in, we already use the term “McMindfulness”. One of the earlier writings is from David Loy and Ron Purser, in 2013 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beyond-mcmindfulness_b_3519289. David Loy uses the Buddhist framework of greed, delusion/ignorance and ill will, and how they have been institutionalized.
Ron Purser, a business professor at San Francisco State U, and a Korean Zen practitioner, went on to write the book in 2019.
Lost in the haze of mindfulness for sale and corporate-ordered meditation sessions is the fact that spirituality isn’t all about peace and tranquility. Think of Jesus in the garden or Jacob wrestling with the angel. Think of “Answer to Job.” Think of long hours spent wondering “What does it all mean?” while your life is tanking around you. Think of sweat lodges, severe fasting, and ecstatic states that border on psychosis. Now do you want me to bring my “whole self” to work?
The rotting stinking zombiefied corpse of neoliberalism will never give up its quest to coopt everything, sacred and profane, to the values of the capitalist marketplace.
It’s about the loss of equilibrium between the palace, temple, market place and people. Unfortunately a lot of the denizens of the temple are more than willing to chop it up in little pieces and sell it in the marketplace.
This article is one of the biggest pieces of horse*^%t I’ve read in years, and verges on an embarrassing time capsule of “Human Potential Movement” cliches and HR-credulous assumptions. Old Greybeard wrote eloquently about worker’s alienation from work and an integrated Self, rather than this airport self-help section rhetoric posing as academic scholarship.
And sorry for the screed, but wtf is “spirituality,” anyway, especially as used in this type of article?? Is it religious belief and practice? Ethics? Juice fasts and Pilates? It’s never adequately defined, and it’s rarely depicted as entailing traditional modes of spiritual endeavor such as prayer, self-denial and self-challenge, or compassion for others (which must include those downstream who are affected by the work one does). It inevitably defaults to consumerism and workplace mystification intended to misdirect workers inherent dissatisfaction with work onto themselves and their own personal deficits.
I’m just surprised they aren’t yet handing out mood altering drugs at the door of the workplace. Swallow those pills to make all the BS go down easier.
Cut to the chase about what they are really trying to do…
Don’t try to change any system, just keep jumping through “self-improvement” hoops.
I would normally weigh in on some assumptions of mindfulness which has been hijacked from Buddhism . However I just finished a two hour zoom group meditation. Too detached to use more bandwidth than necessary. I will leave this though, “ May all beings find the tools for True happiness “.
Not necessarily. You can defend your boundaries in an evolved, emotionally mature way. For example, if your boss suggests you don’t need to power down the paper shredder before you clear a jam, you can counter with polite but firmly stated observations about why that’s not a good suggestion. (Or you could Tom Sawyer it: “Gosh, what a novel suggestion; could you show me how that would go?”)
Oh, come on. I am unable to do that as are most people. And I spent YEARS working on this with many supposed experts and therapists to address this and only this very issue (surprise boundary violations when my rights were not clear) and got nowhere. You are assuming a level of negotiation skill that does not exist in most of the population.
I’d add that the spiritualizing/psychologizing amounts to “straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel” when it comes to social problems like homelessness. The “poor” homeless people are apparently just insane addicts (who must be avoided). Studies have shown the primary problem homeless people have is that they’re poor. Being homeless amounts to an invitation for PTSD, and drugs seem much more appealing after that rental is pulled out from under them.
Yet…my local government continues to prescribe anything but rent subsidies and/or rent control. Roving sociologists/psychologists are supposed to “treat” the homeless and retrain them. No, not supply housing or rent support…that would solve the problem, Blind guides, indeed! (cf Matthew 23)
Call me old-school, but my private life is just that – private, and none of my employer’s business.
Employers trying to blur the differences between corporate and private lives are effectively breaching normal privacy laws. They do it to improve productivity, reduce staff churn, and reduce conflicts. All good in theory….. but.
When they actively discriminate against an employee who chooses not to participate in some ‘team building’ or other ‘social’ activity, there is little recourse for the employee.
Mindfulness or meditation training are intended to gain employees’ acceptance and concentration, but unless 100% voluntary, could be regarded as manipulative and abusive.
The commercialization of another culture’s religion makes me want to v*m1t. I will always remember the NC post which showed how mindfulness without morals made selfish people more selfish. I should have saved the link.
Thankfully it has gone a little quiet at my workplace. The fire burning itself out?