What is Spiritual Health?
The health of employees has become increasingly important over the past few decades. Corporations large and small have invested time, money, and energy into both physical and mental health initiatives in an overarching effort often referred to as “wellness”. One missing piece in most of these efforts is employee Spiritual Health, which overlaps with the other two but is different in many ways.
Mind, body, and soul. While mental health deals with diagnosable conditions such as depression, and physical health is concerned with the human body, spiritual health is concerned with issues that weigh upon the soul. While some fields, such as first responders, the military, and medicine, understand the need for chaplains to address the spiritual health needs of their employees, attention to this key facet of wellness is often overlooked in corporate America.
Key Concepts affecting Employee Spiritual Health
Synchronicity – how well an individual’s morals, ideals, and beliefs align with an organization they are a part of.
Self-Worth – how well an individual knows their contributions, presence, and identity are valued by both their superiors and their coworkers and the nature of their relationship with the Creator God.
Total Stress – the total stress load a person is burdened with from all sources (on the job, off the job, and all places in-between).
Trauma – exposure to a life-threatening or life-taking event (either natural, human-made, or accidental).
What should companies do about Spiritual Health?
FaithWorks USA, Inc. suggests companies have a two-fold approach to spiritual health: trauma preparedness and routine awareness.
First, companies need to have a trauma preparedness plan to deal with on-the-job crises. As much as we do not like to think about the possibility, bad things happen. How a company tends to its workforce in the wake of tragedy matters. What would your company do to support survivors after a workplace fatality in terms of mind, body, and soul? What are your company policies or procedures for severe weather that impacts not just operations, but the workforce’s lives, homes, and community? FWUSA encourages companies to establish relationships with a workplace chaplain, local clergy, or faith-based counselors to prepare for this unfortunate possibility.
The second approach FWUSA suggests, routine awareness, aims at the first three key spiritual health concepts: synchronicity, self-worth, and total stress. Managers with good people skills are well-tuned to what is going on in the lives, minds, and souls of their workforce. While good “people management skills” are often touted on resumes, what does that really look like, or how is it defined, in your place of business or corporate culture? Is it? How well are company managers, from front-line to upper levels, trained in some form to be mindful of these concepts? What subjects should be discussed and what boundaries have been set? Routine awareness can be thought of as a combination of set standards for interpersonal skills and cognizance of the state of employees’ souls.
FaithWorks USA, Inc. promotes and educates companies, employers, and managers about these concepts of employee spiritual health. As a nonprofit ministry, this effort is done at a low cost out of concern for, and love of, neighbor. To hear more about this topic and how FWUSA educates and promotes workforce spiritual health through corporate speaking, lunch and learns, and manager workshops, contact us through the website contact-us feature.
