Workplace Chaplains

HR Magazine, August, 2000 by Lin Grensing-Pophal

Imagine coming to work and finding that an employee has lost five family members, including an unborn child, in a tragic car accident. Where would you turn to help the employee cope? Employee assistance programs and bereavement leave policies help, but when this crisis hit an employee of the City of Lufkin, Texas, the city's director of HR and civil service, David Koonce, had another resource at his disposal: a workplace chaplain.

Can chaplains help boost employee morale, retention and productivity--without promoting religion? Some HR professionals say 'yes.'

The chaplain helped the employee find a church for the funeral, set up the service and negotiate a lower price for the funeral and caskets. But most importantly, says Koonce, having a chaplain on hand "put that employee's mind at ease."

While workplace chaplains often can be found in police and fire departments, other employers have tended to avoid sponsoring chaplains. But employers that use chaplains say these individuals can act as employee sounding boards, provide counseling, guide employees to other counselors and help in situations ranging from office closures to employee arrests. What's more, these employers believe, chaplains can help the bottom line by improving morale and retention.

There are at least 4,000 workplace chaplains, also called corporate or business chaplains, in the U.S. today, according to Mark Cress, founder and president of Inner Active Ministries, a nonprofit organization in Wake Forest, N.C., that provides chaplains to businesses. Cress predicts that over the next decade, the number of chaplains serving employers could swell to 30,000.

Do Chaplains Belong at Work?

Some employers are likely to balk at the idea of using a corporate chaplain. "There are still a lot of skeptics in the workplace," says Gil Stricklin, founder and president of Marketplace Ministries Inc., in Dallas, a not-for-profit organization that provides chaplaincy services to businesses. "If you mention chaplains or religion or faith they say: 'How can you take religion to the workplace? That's un-American. We don't mix religion and work. We don't mix church and state.'"

One person who casts a skeptical eye on workplace chaplains is Annie Laurie Gaylor, spokeswoman for the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The foundation, based in Madison, Wis., describes itself as an association of freethinkers, atheists and agnostics. "Our concern," says Gaylor, "would mainly be that there could be workplace pressure, coercion, harassment or a feeling that your job could be endangered" if you disagree with having a workplace chaplain.

Gaylor adds: "I think that religion creates walls between people and that it is divisive in the workplace because everybody has different beliefs. There is this ecumenical idea that we all believe in the same god. Some of us don't believe in any god at all."

Martin Rutte, president of Livelihood, a management consulting firm in Santa Fe, N.M., and a co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work (Health Communication, 1996), advises, "HR people need to have their antennae tuned very sensitively to these issues." He adds that employees may be concerned that chaplains will proselytize or try to impose their religious views on others.

But providers of corporate chaplains say proselytizing should not be a concern. Diana Dale, a chaplain and head of the National Institute of Business and Industrial Chaplains (NIBIC) in Houston, says that, as a corporate chaplain, "you're to work interculturally and across faith groups. You're not there to proselytize or in any way to push your particular orientation even though you're grounded in your own faith." This, she points out, is a model that can be traced back to the use of chaplains in military settings.

Stricklin also says religious beliefs shouldn't become a factor. "People don't hire us because we're religious or they're religious," he says. "They hire us because they see that we can fulfill a role that no other person on the executive corporate staff is fulfilling. We can do some things that nobody else can do." For example, a chaplain might go with an employee to traffic court, perform a funeral or marriage service or simply provide encouragement to an employee who's having a bad day, he says.

Stricklin's observations are echoed by Heather Butler, HR director for DeKalb Office Environments in Alpharetta, Ga. Butler says the company uses a chaplaincy because "we saw a need that we, as managers, were unable to fill. As director of HR I can't be all over the place all of the time. Our corporate chaplain has been able to attend funerals of our associates and their children, to help with funeral arrangements and to be present on behalf of the company during the ceremonies." DeKalb, which employs about 130 people, has used chaplains for about a year.

Like Butler, Koonce appreciates the fact that chaplains can be there for employees when HR can't. "An organization can't be hands-on with every employee all the time," he says. "We have access to them eight to 10 hours a day on the job site, but, when they're someplace else, they can still access these chaplains."