How one company combines faith, work
I admit I seldom can predict which of these columns will spark interest and which will induce incredible quiet. A column I wrote on the workplace chaplaincy movement prompted significant response from people interested in knowing more about the movement. And it ticked off some folks who think religion ought to keep its nose far away from the workplace. The interest encouraged me to find an active practitioner.
Tyson Foods, headquartered in Springdale, Ark., is a company with strong core values, and one that bills itself as a “faith-friendly workplace.” Gary Mickelson, director of Corporate Media Relations, proudly says, “We do not expect our employees to park their faith at the door.” Corporate chaplaincy is an important part of the company’s commitment to that value.
Allan Tyson (no relation) has been the director of Chaplaincy Services at Tyson Foods for five years. He presides over a network of 127 chaplains serving 78 facilities across the country. Most of the chaplains are part-time and they match the demographics of the plants. Most are Christian, but there are some chaplains of other faiths, including Muslim imams. Allan Tyson encourages his chaplains to minister “beyond their own faith.”
He says his chaplain group is attempting to make the workplace more appealing to employees. The program is seen as an essential part of employee retention. Tyson is convinced it can help employees be more successful in their work. He says chaplains deal with all aspects of faith — personal and plantwide. They assist employees with parenting, health and grief issues. They also get involved in drug and alcohol problems facing employees or family members of employees.
A crucial part of the chaplain role is what Allan Tyson calls a “ministry of presence and availability.” Tyson says the chaplains make it a point to wander the plant floor, hang out in cafeterias and concentrate on being visible. He says his chaplains are usually viewed as “safe persons.” He has found Human Resources deals with fewer “personal issues” when a chaplain is present in a facility.
Tyson Foods is one of the nation’s largest suppliers of meat and poultry products. A lot of the work done in their plants involves rendering and packaging animals to create food you eat at your dinner table. It can be dirty, difficult work, but the company is intent on preserving employees’ dignity and respect. It does that by attending to people’s spiritual and social needs and by attempting to supply meaning for workers. Rather than focusing on cutting up dead chickens, Tyson Foods preaches to employees they are a crucial part of the corporate mission “to feed the world.”
Allan Tyson is not shy about voicing his concern that organized churches have let many people down by failing to help them understand their jobs as being full of meaning and purpose. He believes the pastors who are workplace chaplains revitalize their organized church ministries when they better come to understand the link between their chaplaincy work and their church tasks.
Tyson and the company are very conscious of the concerns many people have about imposing organized religion on people who do not want it or might practice different beliefs. Tyson says, “We tell our chaplains they are not in the plants to “do” church. They are there to “be” church.”
Chaplaincy programs are not the beginning or the end, but they do seem to offer employees searching for a connection between their work and spiritual search a viable way to discover that link. It is a movement employers need to study and take seriously.
Tip for your search: Programs like workplace chaplaincy require open-mindedness and tolerance. If it works for you, embrace it. If there is such a program in your workplace and you don’t believe it’s for you, stay away from it, but respect it. The workplace will be healthier if we did that.
Resource for your search: Church on Sunday, Work on Monday: the Challenge of Fusing Christian Values with Business Life” by Laura Nash and Scotty McLennan (Jossey-Bass, 2001)