Many companies make way for spirituality in workplace

FORT WORTH -- Down a short hallway wide enough for only one person, tucked between the executive offices and the plant floor at Leaman Container in Fort Worth, is a chapel.

With dark brown paneling, a cross and kneeler, it is lit by only a table lamp.

It's available for the 70 employees of the cardboard box manufacturer to take a brief respite during the day for prayer or meditation -- if they choose.

Owner Don Leaman says he isn't trying to convert anyone to his religious beliefs. "I don't even know how much it's used," he says. "Nobody keeps track."

But Leaman says he wants to provide a place for his employees to feel free to express their spirituality at work. He says he wants them to know that he cares about them and that the workplace "is not just a place to come to work."

Many business owners are trying to find ways to help employees find balance between work and home.

But what happens when spirituality plays a strong role in someone's life?

Once reserved for religious settings or the home, spirituality is finding its way into the workplace, experts say.

Susan White, a professor of worship and spirituality at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, says employers are taking a much more holistic attitude toward employees, offering spiritual assistance as a benefit, just as they would child care and job flexibility to help people balance their work and family lives.

"People don't leave bits of themselves at the door," White says. "Employers are recognizing that people's spirituality and family do matter to them. All those kinds of things enhance employees' well- being."

Ron Ballard, a professsor of the New Testament at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, says because public displays of religious expression have increased and more people are willing to be visible and vocal about their faith, "it's only a short step to the workplace."

White says that is especially true now that people of all faiths find themselves working together.

Marketplace Ministries founder Gil Stricklin says employers' desire to help meet their employees' spiritual needs has sparked tremendous growth for his company, which provides chaplain services in the workplace.

He says Marketplace Ministries adds a company to its client list every 10 days, and he can't hire chaplains fast enough to handle requests. Founded in Dallas in 1984, it has locations in 176 cities in 35 states.

"More and more, employers are seeing spirituality in the workplace is a very, very positive thing," Stricklin says. "Life is tough, and when it knocks you down, you need someone to help you up."

Spelled-out policies

According to a recent survey by Lutheran Brotherhood, a Minneapolis-based insurance company that serves primarily Lutherans, 70 percent of respondents said they talk about faith in the workplace. Half said those talks take place at least once a month, and 19 percent said they talk about religion with their co-workers at least once a year.

But allowing employees an outlet for religious expression in the workplace can create subtle pressures, even if unintentional, for those employees who don't participate to conform, White says.

To avoid this, White recommends that companies set policies that spell out how they will handle religion-related requests and activities and make sure that employees understand that not participating will not adversely affect their job evaluations.

"This is a difficult thing that's swirling around it," White says. "You can't make it a condition of work. It needs to be a policy."

Marketplace Ministries' Berl Pedigo, the chaplain at Leaman Containers, says he has to overcome initial hesitancy among employees when he goes into a company. He says he walks through, stopping to chat with them for a moment. If they want his help, they let him know, Pedigo says. If not, or if they don't even want to talk, he moves on.

"When starting in a new workplace, employees are suspicious," he says. "They think we're spies. But I keep at it. I come back and say `Hello' and walk on until a comfort level sinks in."

He has performed weddings, funerals and visited employees in the hospital.

Cathy Brooks, who began working at Leaman Containers only four months ago, says she was surprised, yet pleased, to learn about the chaplain services. "I've had some great talks," she says.

`Live like Christians at work'

Auto dealer James Wood, who operates showrooms in Decatur and Denton, says he turned to Marketplace Ministries a couple of years ago when it became too difficult for him and his wife to continue counseling employees.

Wood says that when he told his managers that he was going to begin offering chaplain services, no one said a word, pro or con.

Today, Wood says, if he tried to cut the program, those same managers would step forward and plead to keep it in place. Jobs and marriages have been saved because employees were able to seek the professional help they needed through the chaplain, he says.

"That's how big a change they made," Wood says. "It shows we care about them. We want employees to live like Christians at work. That makes a difference to us."

Having a spiritual work force is also important to Steve Harms, president of RIM Manufacturing in Weatherford, just west of Fort Worth.

Harms says it is part of his stewardship that he meet the spiritual needs of his employees. He began using Marketplace Ministries in June for his 37-employee work force.

"I have always felt that the businesses we have, they're owned by God, anyway," Harms says. "We are to share our faith, but not share it in a way that is causing someone else to feel they are being attacked. Things aren't done just for the sake of the bottom line."

He says he has no idea how many of his employees have talked to the chaplain.

"It could be having a tremendous impact," he says. "Truly, I don't know conversations and I never see him."

In search of peace

It's important to many business owners that they run their businesses on the religious principles they live by, Stricklin says.

"More and more employers, men and women of faith, want to extend their faith to the lives of their employees and families," he says. "It's a great business decision. It's a great Christian decision. It's a great faith decision."

Ken Schaefer, principal in Blanchard Schaefer Advertising & Public Relations in Arlington, says he and his two partners sat down and talked about their Christian beliefs and what part they would play in their business before the three agreed to the venture a decade ago.

"It was very important to all three of us," Schaefer says. "It puts you on a common page. As partners, our faith manifests itself i how we do business."

Schaefer says he starts and ends the day with a prayer and reads a daily devotional book when he starts his day at the office. He says his employees are free to share e-mails that might contain a parable or a Bible verse.

"It's not about forced faith," he says. "We're all in search of peace. We want our lives to be balanced and in peace."

Schaefer says faith is not used as a shield but manifests itself in a desire to do the right thing -- particularly for employees.

"That's very much a biblically based principle," Schaefer says.

Arlington attorney Tim Kolton has placed statues of St. Joseph, the patron saint of workers, in each room in his office, as a reminder throughout the day of his faith. He says his clients rarely mention or ask about the statues, but says he would have no hesitation talking about them.

"It's my good luck charm," he says. "I've always had something to do and have kept busy."

Biting the bullet

Sam Emmerson, owner of PML Permite, a five-employee industrial chemical manufacturing company in Fort Worth, says providing a spiritual foundation can help employees, who are constantly faced with contradictions and dilemmas in the workplace.

Emmerson, who speaks to business groups and others on the topic, "Faith in the Workplace," says employers shouldn't expect employees to compromise truth and integrity in their work.

It goes down to even those little white lies, such as when a boss tells his assistant to say he's not in his office when he really is, Emmerson says.

"How many times does that happen, and that's a small one," Emmerson says. "Things like this is what we're all up against."

Emmerson says he recently found himself in a position that tested those principles. In checking bookkeeping, it was discovered that his company inadvertently overcharged a customer $1,100.

He says that as soon as the mistake was discovered, he went to the company, admitted the error and the mistake was taken care of.

"A lot of times you have to bite the bullet," he says. "The bottom line is you're being honest. I'm not pious. The only thing I tell you is I'm honest and I have integrity."

Copyright 1998
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