Paper short abstract:

The paper asks what happens when well-being and spirituality movement practices are implemented in the organizational life. It scrutinizes spiritual labor – a type of work-boundary blurring – through qualitative analysis of questionnaires by using theories of work boundaries and spiritual labor.

Paper long abstract:

This paper contributes to the broader question what happens when well-being and spirituality movement practices are implemented in the organizational life (cf. Bell and Taylor, 2003; Cederström and Spicer, 2015; Davies, 2015; Zaidman et al., 2009). As workplace spirituality is becoming more accepted and celebrated in workplaces, it draws attention from management and human resources that aim to use it for organizational purposes. Mental and spiritual practices and “workplace enchantment”, may be endorsed in order to enhance, for example, creativity and a sense of authenticity (Bell 2008; Endrissat et al. 2015; Ogden 2016; Suddaby et al. 2017), or resilience and commitment.

The data for this study has been collected in a business organization forced to push its employees to work remotely due to the pandemic, in spring 2020. The policies on remote work came and went, but the employees tented to stay working remote even after the organization was trying to coax them back to office. The data was collected during three consecutive autumns (2020, 2021 and 2022) through surveys with open-ended questions, followed by qualitative content analysis through which several themes were identified.

The company started online mindfulness classes during the remote work period. Already before that, the workers used various techniques of mind to be able to cope with work and other pressures of life. This paper looks at how these practices evolved and how the use of these techniques developed during the prolonged remote work period.

The theoretical framework consists of the work boundary theories of organizational studies, discussions on post-secularization and the theory of spiritual labour (Karjalainen 2022). As blurring work boundaries, constant negotiations, and insecurities related to them are typical for knowledge professionals, the organization in question proved a fruitful ground for practices on workplace spirituality.