Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Careers, Workplace and Religion
How to humanize the workplace

How to humanize the workplace

Last updated on: March 14, 2014 at 9:53 pm by The Gospel Coalition

How to humanize the workplace 2014-03-14T21:53:10-05:00 The Gospel Coalition

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Bethany Jenkins

Moritz Erhardt, a healthy and athletic 21-year-old intern at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London, collapsed and died in his shower on August 15, 2013. Described as the “superstar” of the internship program, he regularly left the office at 5 a.m. only to go to his apartment to take a shower and change his clothes before returning to work. In the days leading up to his death, Erhardt pulled eight all-nighters in a two-week period. The cause of death is believed to be exhaustion-induced epileptic seizure.

Investment banks are infamous for asking their employees to keep grueling hours, but their industry is hardly unique. Law firms are still largely based on billable hours, which means that employees who work long hours are more profitable than those who don’t. Contractors working on offshore oil and gas rigs usually pull two-week shifts at 84 hours per week, and teachers work more than 50 hours per week on average.

Overworking to the point of exhaustion is dehumanizing. It treats employees as cogs in a machine, not as fully human people who need rest and leisure. Yet overworking is not the only way our work environments can be dehumanized. How does your company, for example, promote continuing education? Does it offer proper job training for different roles? Are all people treated with dignity? Is innovation encouraged at all levels?

The brokenness of the workplace is compounded when combined with the brokenness of the community and also the individual. In the case of the young investment banker, his community did not speak truth to power. One of his co-workers confessed, “I see many people wandering around, blurry-eyed and drinking caffeine to get through, but people don’t complain because the potential rewards are so great.” At an individual level, Erhardt himself talked about his own struggle with pursuing success. On his blog, he wrote, “Sometimes I had a tendency to be overly ambitious. . . . Over the last year, I have learned that complacency implies stagnancy.”

Becoming Fully Human

When brokenness exists at all three levels in the workplace—the industry, the community, and the individual—where can we find hope?

“In the fall of man, we become dehumanized,” says David H. Kim, executive director of the Center for Faith and Work (CFW) and the pastor of faith and work at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. “But the gospel makes us fully human.” He points to Jonathan Edwards, who said, “Before, as God created [man], he was exalted, and noble, and generous; but now he is debased, and ignoble, and selfish. Immediately upon the fall, the mind of man shrank from its primitive greatness and expandedness, to an exceeding smallness and contractedness.”

Sin, Kim says, is why “we never seem to be able to achieve that greatness we feel so deeply in our own hearts.”

Yet God did not leave humanity in its shriveled state. Edwards continues, “But God, in mercy to miserable man entered on the work of redemption and, by the glorious gospel of his Son, began the work of bringing the soul of man out of its confinement and contractedness, and back again to those noble and divine principles by which it was animated and governed at first. And it is through the cross of Christ that he is doing this; for our union with Christ gives us participation in his nature.”

Toward a Humanized Workplace

The gospel may make us fully human at the individual level, but what about at the community and industry levels? Kim suggests four particular areas that are fundamental to a humanized workplace—fairness, equity, opportunity, and creativity/innovation. “This is not about meeting the minimum standards, but about creating human flourishing for people to live out their calling as divine image-bearers in the world.”

At the industry level, an entire economy may image God as creator by promoting a culture of innovation. Kim, who is Korean American, cites the transformation of the South Korean economy. Once considered an “imitative” culture, South Korea’s economy has flourished through innovation. The Boston Consulting Group now places South Korea number one on its “International Innovation Index,” which looks at both the business outcomes of innovation (e.g., patents, R&D results, shareholder returns) and the government’s ability to encourage and support innovation through public policy (e.g., fiscal policy, education policy, innovation environment).

At the community level, an institution might image God’s self-disclosure by embracing transparent management practices and open communication. “The character of God is self-disclosure,” Kim explains. “It’s gracious of God to reveal himself to us. When we don’t know certain things, he’s not making a power play; he’s extending love to us because, for whatever reason, that information would harm us.” Google is an institution that celebrates transparent management in their “Eight Habits of Highly Effective Google Managers,” which includes having “a clear vision and strategy for the team” and helping “your employees with career development.” Incidentally, Google consistently ranks number one on Forbes‘s annual “best places to work” list.

At the individual level, discerning the brokenness of an industry or an institution is important for discerning a vocational call. “A lot of people have problems with their sense of calling,” Kim says, “not because they’re in the wrong industry, but because they’re in a dehumanized workplace. They may have loved law school, for example, but they hate the law firm or the legal industry. In such cases, it’s hard to know whether you’re in the right vocation.”

What happens when the workplace at all these levels is more humanized? Productivity and efficiency increases as well as the ability to live out our callings as image-bearers of God. All of us—whether directors, managers, or assistants—have the opportunity to re-humanize our workplaces. In Creation Regained, Albert Wolters writes, “The healing, restoring work of Christ marks the invasion of the kingdom into the fallen creation.” And as Edwards said, “Our union with Christ gives us participation in his nature.” How can we participate in his nature and see the restoring work of Christ invade our broken workplaces?

Bethany L. Jenkins is the director of TGC’s Every Square Inch and the founder of The Park Forum. She previously worked on Wall Street and on Capitol Hill. She received her JD from Columbia Law School and attends Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, where she was a Gotham Fellow through the Center for Faith & Work.

Faith and the Workplace

Previous Post

March 8, 2014

Upcoming Faith@Work summit

Next Post

March 14, 2014 Working and keeping in God's "Oikos"

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Art Audio posts Bible and Work Book Review Books Budgeting Calling Common Good Community Development Conferences Discipleship Economics Entrepreneurship Ethics Faith and Family Faith and the Marketplace Faith and the Workplace faith and work History of Work and Vocation Leadership Local Church Meaning New Blogger News Prayer Relationships Seminaries Theology of Work Uncategorized Video posts Vocation Worship Resources

Select a Month April 2026 October 2025 September 2025 July 2025 April 2025 January 2025 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 May 2024 March 2024 February 2024 December 2023 November 2023 August 2023 July 2023 April 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 June 2021 May 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 January 2020 December 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 April 2018 March 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Multitudes of locusts came in waves—the cutting, swarming, hopping, and destroying locusts. What did this plague foreshadow?

Select your answer to see how you score.

An invasion God's wrath The day of the Lord A famine