Business: Spirituality: Connecticut business notes increase of at-work spiritual consideration of all faiths

The website conntact.com, a statewide infobank search engine for business periodicals online published in the state of Connecticute, archives yesterday's article by Karen Singer of Business New Haven (Hat Tip to Business Reform magazine).

Singer's article surveys the rising practice of businesses taking into account the specificities of employees' different religious practice and needs - from attire to days off for religious holidays to prayer observances to simple acknowledgement that a religion may be important in any employee's life. The accomodation of religious differences and the need for sensitivity to various spiritualities, as all part of a business' internal culture that can have positive effects for the atmosphere of workaday daily existence. And, hence, one mite add: however intangible, also a positive effect on the company's bottom line.

On the other hand, insensitivity practiced by an owner or manager, or by employees who tease fellow workers who are noticeably religiously observant or just religiously different, these can be serious problems for the conduct of a business; they can lead to workers quitting, and to lawsuits against a firm for tolerating a circle of employees teasing a fellow employee. What's more, some religious practices can be deterimental to the business culture and the firm's peace - prescribing a prayer, obtrusive evangelization or "witnessing," and injecting a dogmatic version of "the truth" into the business discourse or just the milieu can work mischief. And, again, as a result of lawsuits, can become expensive for a firm that does not monitor such phenomena and constrain abusive zealotry by some.

But more important than these negative possiblities, Singer's report presents a series of anecdotal items which tell of individuals who are active in making room for spirituality at work, a number of them being owners or managers.

In the greater New Haven area, there's actually something of a loose and open business movement engaged in the process of accomodating spiritualities in the workplace, and networking about these developments. One important feature for the area is the existence at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, of the Center for Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School. David Miller, executive director of the Center, explains that "There's a long tradition of philosophical thinking about how religion functions in the world. It's only natural that the human soul is yearning to be integrated, rather than split by false dichotomies that stem from the enlightenment era in Western history, which led to a separation of facts and values." - Owlb
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