Workplace spirituality and employee well-being: an empirical examination

Abstract

Purpose The existing literature suggests that employee well-being is an important concern for organizations. The purpose of this paper is to carry out an empirical examination to assess whether employee experience of workplace spirituality has positive relationships with multiple forms of employee well-being. Design/methodology/approach This paper focussed on four forms of employee well-being, namely: emotional well-being, psychological well-being, social well-being, and spiritual well-being. It specified and empirically tested, using a survey design, four hypotheses, each proposing a positive relationship between workplace spirituality and one of the four forms of employee well-being. Findings All four hypotheses were supported indicating that workplace spirituality has a positive relationship with emotional, psychological, social, and spiritual well-being. Research limitations/implications This paper may encourage future research to assess whether various forms of employee well-being result from specific dimensions of workplace spirituality. Practical implications Organizations may implement workplace spirituality for simultaneously enhancing multiple forms of employee well-being. Social implications As employee well-being is a matter of social concern, the findings of this study indicating a positive association between workplace spirituality and employee well-being have a social relevance. Originality/value To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relationship between workplace spirituality and four forms of employee well-being, namely; emotional, psychological, social, and spiritual well-being. As employee well-being is an important concern for organizations, the contribution of the study findings is that workplace spirituality implementation can simultaneously enhance multiple forms of employee well-being.