| Changes in the modern workplace are happening rapidly and dramatically throughout the world. Given the bottom-line benefit of attracting and retaining key talent, employee engagement has risen as a crucial consideration for contemporary organizations.;The purpose of this exploratory research project was to examine if individual spirituality was associated with employee engagement. The secondary goal of this project was to explore if individual levels of spirituality were associated in any way with the various components of employee engagement.;This study used two validated instruments to collect and measure the data. The Gallup Q12 was used to measure employee engagement, and the Spiritual Investment and Belief Scale--Revised was used to measure individual levels of personal spirituality. Together, these instruments were used to collect data to explore possible relationship.;The initial hypothesis was that individuals who scored higher on the Spiritual Investment and Belief Scale--Revised scale would yield a higher overall employee engagement score than individuals who scored lower on the Spiritual Investment and Belief Scale--Revised. The results indicated the opposite, in almost every dimension of measurement.;Findings indicated that there was little relationship between spirituality and the individual components of engagement. A slight inverse association was suggested, meaning that for this sample, the more spiritual an individual, the less likely they were to be fully engaged in their work. Focus group respondents added that a possible explanation for this was that spiritual people may be more likely to be invested in something greater than themselves, and therefore less invested in their careers. The reporting sample for this research was very small, making it difficult to determine definitive relationship among the data.;It was concluded that spirituality may not be an overall lever for changing engagement levels, however, results did show that women who were more focused on helping others were more likely to have higher levels of engagement. This was not a factor affecting men's engagement levels. These results show that various factors of spirituality can be further explored as potential levers for changing components of engagement, such as encouraging community building or increasing the sense of organizational belonging. In a world where attracting and retaining top talent is a strategic advantage, it is critical to explore and understand any potential levers for increasing employee engagement. |
