Workplace Spirituality and Its Role in Enhancing Job Satisfaction among Teaching Faculty in Telangana Colleges

Abstract

Teaching in higher education has increasingly become a demanding profession, with faculty members facing growing work pressure, emotional strain, and challenges to sustained job satisfaction. In this context, workplace spirituality has emerged as an important organizational approach that emphasizes meaningful work, trust, compassion, and a sense of community, addressing employees’ inner needs alongside professional responsibilities. The present study examines the role of workplace spirituality in enhancing job satisfaction, motivation, and well-being among teaching faculty working in autonomous engineering colleges in Telangana. The study also seeks to identify the specific dimensions of workplace spirituality that most strongly influence faculty job satisfaction. Adopting a descriptive and analytical research design, primary data were collected from 174 teaching faculty members using a structured questionnaire. Workplace spirituality was operationalized through four dimensions—meaningful work, trust, compassion, and sense of community—while job satisfaction and motivation–well-being indicators were measured using validated scales. Data were analyzed in three stages using descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, and inferential techniques such as correlation and regression analysis. The findings indicate that faculty members experience a high level of workplace spirituality and job satisfaction. Reliability analysis confirms strong internal consistency of all measurement scales. Inferential results reveal that workplace spirituality has a strong and significant positive impact on job satisfaction. Dimension-level analysis shows that trust, meaningful work, and sense of community are the most influential contributors to job satisfaction, while compassion plays a supportive but relatively weaker role. Further analysis demonstrates that higher workplace spirituality is strongly associated with enhanced motivation and well-being, reflected through happiness at work, motivation to perform, and intention to continue in the institution. The study contributes region-specific empirical evidence and offers practical insights for academic administrators to foster spiritually supportive work environments that promote faculty satisfaction, motivation, and institutional effectiveness.