Chapter 8: Caring For Employees: Corporate Chaplains as a Model of Faith at Work

When was the last time someone from human relations (HR) visited you because your son was in police custody, the emergency room, or struggling with substance abuse issues, which prevented you from being fully present at work? Welcome to the world of workplace chaplains who do just that and more, regardless of one’s faith tradition.

Although chaplains have been integral players in the religious landscape for centuries, corporate (or workplace) chaplaincy has emerged in recent decades as a growing and creative method whereby businesses or not–for–profit organizations hire religious clergy to serve the emotional, psychosocial, and spiritual needs of employees directly in their place of work (Miller, Ngunjiri, … LoRusso, 2016). Our research into workplace chaplaincy over the last several years, has found that executive leadership typically implemented corporate chaplaincy programs to extend holistic care to their employees, particularly where span of control and other organizational dynamics might otherwise prevent managers from offering personal support and assistance to employees who face life’s daily challenges. While seldom the goal, our research finds that corporate chaplaincy programs often bring many business benefits, including higher employee engagement, loyalty, and profitability. Generally speaking, workplace chaplains are largely comprised of ordained clergy from Protestant and Catholic traditions, in contrast to military and hospital chaplaincy programs, who have wider representation from the world’s major religious traditions. According to our research, the majority of companies that implement a chaplaincy program are led by a Christian chief executive officer, and the main chaplaincy providers—third–party firms who provide chaplains to client organizations—are almost exclusively Christian.¹ While CEOs, senior human relations executives, chaplaincy providers, and the chaplains themselves all stress they are to serve all employees, regardless of religious tradition, the phenomenon has a distinctly Christian presence.² Perhaps this is not surprising, given that, depending on which poll one follows, 70%–75% of the United States population is Christian (Newport, 2015; Pew Research Center, n.d.), but as we will discuss later in the chapter, this also reflects the fact that chaplaincy has until recently a largely Christian phenomenon. Consequently, exploring the attitudes of these senior leaders toward workplace chaplaincy deepens our collective knowledge about how Christians—of all types and levels— are striving to integrate their faith and work. Through our research into corporate chaplaincy, our aim is to answer the question: what does workplace chaplaincy reveal about Christian faith in the workplace more broadly?