Spirituality & Work 2019

Faculty of Social Science

Department of Social Work

Skill lab Report

Course: M.A HRM

Under the guidance of

Prof. S.M Sajid

Name Mohd Zeeshan Siddiqui

Subject Spirituality and Work
Course Title HRM
Semester/Year 1st Semester
Resource Person Dr.Shad Habib

Jamia Millia Islamia Page 1

 Spirituality & Work 2019

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the Assignment entitled “Sprituality and

Work” submitted by me for the partial fulfillment of the
requirement for the field work 1st semester , the records of the
student’s own work carried under the guidance of Prof. S.M Sajid.

Jamia Millia Islamia Page 2

 Spirituality & Work 2019

Introduction

This was the fourth skill lab of this semester, the topic of the skill
lab was Spirituality and HR. The skill lab was conducted on 14
November from 2:30 pm to 5 pm by Mr. Shad Habib from Jamia
Hamdard, he is an expert in his field as he is also pursuing PhD on
the same topic. He is an alumni of Jamia Millia Islamia. By various
activities, skits and videos the resource person explained us the
topic in a manner that is dealt in our minds. The topic really helped
us to understand the true meaning of spirituality. He showed us
some videos and made students perform some skits that helped us
understood the concepts in a prominent manner about the
workplace spirituality and why it is necessary.

Jamia Millia Islamia Page 3

 Spirituality & Work 2019

Spirituality:

Spirituality is the Invisible potential in the human body which

acts as a current to propel you in the higher path in life,
spirituality should not be used as a religious garment for
marketing tool. It is the spiritually guided path that can show the
managers to undertake their duties with humility and sense of
service. Workplace spirituality need revival today, increased
materialism and profit maximization objectives of the
organisations has crippled the spiritual values of the workplace.
In the recent past the consultancy and the mystery activities in
this area have increased phenomenally, many companies are
drilling to invest money to sponsor seminars and workshops on
spiritual wisdoms, meditation, work life balance and life
satisfaction.

Attributes of spirituality:

Some of the main attributes of a speciality spirituality with

context of work maybe as under:

● Defining ourselves as having inherent values, greater than the

roles, titles and
possessions.
● Affirming the meaning and purpose in spite of chaos.
● Emphasising authenticity, inner wisdom and creativity and
transformation.
● Recognising the immaterial and sacred dimensions of society.
● Having a servants attitude for work and leadership.
● Embodying the Spiritual values of integrity, honesty, kindness
and respect.
● Viewing the God and spiritual principles as the grounding for
moral decision

Jamia Millia Islamia Page 4

 Spirituality & Work 2019

Achieving spiritual growth:

For coping up the increased feeling of stress and alienation both
managers and employees are trying to create a meaning and
purpose at their workplace. For attaining the spiritual growth in
the life following tools can be used:
● Read spiritual books and think about what you read and try to
find out how you can use
them in your life.

● Meditate for about 15 minutes everyday. This can be done in the

easiest way by finding the methods of meditation from book,
websites etc.

● Learn to make your mind quite through concentration exercise

and meditation.

● Look often into yourself and into your mind and try to find out
what is it that makes you feel conscious and alive.

● Think positive, if you find yourself thinking negatively,

immediately switch to thinking positively be in control of what
enters your mind.

● Develop the happiness habit by looking at the Bright Side of

Life, do not let the outer circumstances decide your happiness.

● Meditation and exercise strengthen your willpower and

decision making ability.

● Develop tolerance, patience and consideration for others.

The spiritual growth is birth right of everyone, it is the key to
happiness and peace of mind. It helps in cultivating the enormous
power of inner spirit.

Jamia Millia Islamia Page 5

 Spirituality & Work 2019

Promoting the spirituality at workplace:

When the spirituality is embraced into the work culture of the

organisation, following changes takes place at the workplace.

● The organisation becomes purpose driven and meaning based.

● The management with the mission will replace the

management of efficiency and control.

● The fear based cultural shift to the love based culture.

● The management practices and decisions will clearly be

consistent with the spiritual values such as integrity honesty,
love, hope, kindness and respect and nurturing.

Activity 1
We were told to write a word in a piece of paper,the word could be
anything. After that we were instructed to submit that piece of
paper to sir, he then shuffled those paper and told us to speak on
that particular world written on the paper. The drill was we had to
choose the paper and the topic could be anything and we were
required to speak for 30 sec non-stop on the spot without any
preparation.
After everyone spoke, we came to a conclusion that most of the
students had written the word “happiness” that depict it is
something that everyone aspire for.

Jamia Millia Islamia Page 6

 Spirituality & Work 2019

Relationship between spirituality and Religion

Spirituality is "essence" and religion is "form." Spirituality is the

source of an unlimited number of forms the human experience
may take, such as meditation, prayer, Zen, environmental
conservation, and treating others with respect, dignity, and as
equals.

Religions usually have a moral code listing rights and wrongs.

Spirituality is living by the laws of the universe. It does not
involve any moral codes of right or wrong nor a deity to worship
but presents us with the facts of how life works. Living a spiritual
life means checking out whatever happens to you within these
laws. Spiritual, to us, means studying the inside of you and how
the laws of the universe affect you. Religion refers to a God that
one worships outside of you. Neither one are right or wrong-just
different.

What Is Compassion?

Compassion literally means “to suffer together.” It is defined as

the feeling that arises when you are confronted with another’s
suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering.
Compassion is not the same as empathy or altruism, though the
concepts are related. While empathy refers more generally to our
ability to take the perspective of and feel the emotions of another
person, compassion is when those feelings and thoughts include
the desire to help. Altruism, in turn, is the kind, selfless behavior
often prompted by feelings of compassion, though one can feel

Jamia Millia Islamia Page 7

 Spirituality & Work 2019

compassion without acting on it, and altruism isn’t always

motivated by compassion.

Activity 2

Skit

Characters:

Ritik (Bank Manager)

Zeeshan (Employee)
Faisal (top level officer)

The scene begins with Zeeshan entering the cabin of bank

manager that was being played by Ritik. After entering we saw
bank manager talking continuously on the phone with his friend.
Zeeshan told him to grant him leave for his brother marriage but
he unswervingly denied stating there’s already lot of work pilled
up.
The next scene begins with Bank Manager(Ritik) intrude in his
boss(Faisal) office. Ritik asked his boss for a promotion saying his
performance has increased over time and lot of his junior
employees have got the raise. Faisal didn’t paid much attention to
him and discard his demand.

Learning
There was lack of compassion among the employees and that
needs to be fixed. As an HR manager or even an employee in an
organisation one must be compassionate with others.

Listen First, Always:

Jamia Millia Islamia Page 8

 Spirituality & Work 2019

Good leaders know that listening is one of the most important

skills they could practice. But it’s not always easy, especially if
you’re tasked with communicating your company’s policies and
needs above all else. Remember The Ritz-Carlton’s approach:
you’re a servant to both the company and the employee. Here are
some ways to become a better, more empathetic, listener:

Create a Distraction-Free Space for Conversation

Getting rid of distractions like cell phones, and even that
spreadsheet on your computer screen. So turn off your devices,
close your laptop, and show your teammate that you’re open to
hearing what they have to say

Validate Their Feelings

Good listeners ask clarifying questions and don’t just jump to
conclusions. When an employee makes a statement, repeat it back
to them saying something like, “I’m hearing that you’re frustrated
with how your manager is handling this situation. Am I
interpreting that accurately? Sometimes, this also
means apologizing for bad leadership, if it’s appropriate.

Mindfulness

It is a state of inner consciousness in which one is aware of one’s

thought and action movement by movement.While mindfulness is
something we all naturally possess, it’s more readily available to
us when we practice on a daily basis. Whenever you bring
awareness to what you’re directly experiencing via your senses,
or to your state of mind via your thoughts and emotions, you’re
being mindful. And there’s growing research showing that when
you train your brain to be mindful, you’re actually remodeling
the physical structure of your brain.

Activity 2

Jamia Millia Islamia Page 9

 Spirituality & Work 2019

Close your eyes and focus on breathing for 1 minute.

The motive of this activity was to be present in the present and

self introspecting ourself.

Activity 3

Observe an ordinary object for 2 minute

Learning - It was a little practice on how to meditate and listen to

inner voices of ourselves. Each time we count in our minds we
were striking with thoughts in our minds that were disturbing
and werenot able to focus on the counting. And in the focus and
analyzing activity we analyzed the minor details of the things
when we looked at them carefully. So this is the power of
concentration, we all should try to meditate and learn to focus on
things.

Meaningful work

It is concerned with one’s experience that his/her work is

signified and meaningful part to one’s life.

Transcendence
Transcendence means connection to something greater than
oneself.

What is Workplace Spirituality?

Jamia Millia Islamia Page 10

 Spirituality & Work 2019

Workplace spirituality is a framework of organizational values

evidenced in the culture that promote employees’ experience of
transcendence through the work process, facilitating their sense
of being connected to other in a way that provides feeling of
completeness and joy.

Workplace spirituality is not about organized practices. It’s not

about theology of about one’s spiritual leader. Rather, workplace
spirituality is about recognizing that takes place in the context of
an organizational community. Organizations that promote a
spiritual culture recognize that employees have both a mind and a
spirit, seek to find meaning and purpose in their work, and desire
to connect with other employees and be part of a community.

Why the emphasis on spirituality in today’s

organizations?

Historical models of management had no room for spirituality.

These models typically focused on organizations that were
efficiently run without feelings toward others. Similarly, concern
about an employee’s inner life had no role in managing
organizations. But just as we’ve come to realize that the study of
emotions improves our understanding of how and why people act
the way they do in organizations, an awareness of spirituality can
help one better understand employee work behavior in the
twenty first century organization.

For example, The Indian self is found to have a significant

component of spirituality which has manifest implications for
their workplace performances moral decision making or attitudes
towards ethical issues.

Assessment
At the end of the session we were given a Workplace Spirituality
Questionnaire consisting whereby we have to choose among the

Jamia Millia Islamia Page 11

 Spirituality & Work 2019

four option segregated into Strongly disagree, agree, neutral,

agree, strongly agree.

The question were basically related to self introspection and how

well I know myself.

Jamia Millia Islamia Page 12

 Spirituality & Work 2019

Learning
This particular skill lab was very different than other skill labs as
the teacher taught us the topic in very practical way. He taught us
through small plays about the importance of spiritual values that
a person should have, relationship between spirituality and
religion, how it impact the working in the organisation.

Jamia Millia Islamia Page 13