Answered prayers

The prayer room has a pretty unholy reputation in British corporate life. Most aren’t immediately recognisable as sacred spaces ­– usually, they’re otherwise unloved meeting rooms, crammed with unwanted furniture and offering barely enough floor space to squeeze in a prayer mat.

But the signs are that prayer rooms – many of which have evolved into ‘faith spaces’ or ‘mindfulness rooms’ – are back in the ascendency. And they’re much more sophisticated than they’ve ever been before.

Ostensibly, the idea of a prayer room as a diversity must-have is being driven by US tech firms looking to win competitive commercial advantage. Chicago Business reports that Google, Orbitz and Gogo are all investing substantially in faith spaces because they’re ‘a tool for attracting and retaining talent, proof that the boss welcomes Muslims and other people of faith.’

It’s a reasonable commercial argument, and one that could easily gain momentum on this side of the Atlantic. The number of Muslims in the UK doubled in the decade up to 2011, and is now around 5% of the population.

‘Absolutely useful’

Of course, to many organisations, faith spaces have long been a feature of workplace life. Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright has had a multi-faith room in its London office for ten years. Its facility is a substantial investment, and even includes a special washroom with two low-level sinks, useful for Muslims needing to wash their feet before prayers.

Is the facility useful? ‘Absolutely,’ says Lak Purewal, the firm’s Head of HR. ‘Our workforce is a diverse community, with faith needs that need to be accommodated. A dedicated space makes meeting these needs much easier.’

Purewal points out that clients as well as staff use the facility. (An interesting thought for anyone in HR looking to build a business case.) ‘We have many clients of faith,’ he says, ‘and if some are here for a whole day meeting and need to pray, it’s better that we can offer an on-site solution.’

Other notable organisations have established permanent spaces that enhance their diversity and wellbeing agendas. BP in Canary Wharf has a meditation room; Goldman Sachs, perhaps surprisingly, offers ‘meditation pods’.

Uplifting spaces

All these interventions presumably work to some degree. But as one expert recognises, the degree to which your space has a positive impact on the organisation is very much a question of design.

‘Offering a space is not the same as offering an effective space,’ says Helen Sanderson, an interior designer, student of faith traditions and founder of a consultancy called Ministry of Calm. ‘Walking into a faith space should be uplifting, like walking into a church, mosque or other place of worship.’

Sanderson knows why many workplace faith spaces are often depressing. ‘The people who create them make them simple and on a budget, because they think simple isn’t going to offend anyone and it is a functional space,’ she explains. ‘The big mistake they make is that they take the sacred out and don’t know how to put it back in, in a neutral way.’

When designing a space for a client, she aims to reclaim the sacred in a non-denominational way through artful combinations of lighting, colours and generic artefacts. ‘Nothing illustrative,’ she warns. ‘No icons, no animals, no people’. Other factors to take into consideration include level of usage – hardwearing materials might be required – and whether the room needs cooling down or warming up, brightening or dimming down.

There are also several functional elements to be taken into account, says Sanderson, who recommends the online report by the St Ethelburga’s Centre, Recovering the Calm, which she helped produce. The report suggests faith spaces should have screens to separate male and female Muslims at prayer, that the room should be designed in such a way that worshippers can face Mecca, and that furniture should include a shoe-rack and a cupboard for keeping religious artefacts out of sight when not in use.

Energising introverts

Pressure on HR to deliver these spaces is now coming from various sources, thinks Sanderson. Besides the recruitment and diversity arguments, there’s a well-being argument that says everyone – religious or not – needs a quiet place to take time out to re-charge. You wouldn’t expect an athlete to work eight hours full out,’ says Sanderson. ‘And you shouldn’t expect your people to do it, either.’

Sanderson also points to Susan Cain’s zeitgeist work on ‘the quiet revolution’, outlined in her ‘The Power of Introverts’, TED Talk. Cain suggests that HR should consider another facet of diversity. ‘The often-overlooked introvert can definitely be energised by quiet space and time,’ says Sanderson.

But are these spaces fundamentally at odds with the aims of profit-focused organisations? Sanderson admits that corporates and employees do often have different value systems. But she insists that carefully considered and well-designed faith spaces are definitely to be seen as an asset to any company, and that business benefits can be measured, especially in terms of preventing increased stress levels and absenteeism.

There’s a bank in Canary Wharf, she says, that has a large prayer room partly to discourage its Muslim workforce from leaving the site for Friday prayers. ‘It might seem cynical, but the staff are happy that they have an adequate space, and others come who have no space of their own’.

In 2012, The University of Manchester conducted in-depth research into multi-faith spaces (MFS) that also recognises the curious relationship between sacred space and business. ‘When the motivation behind an MFS is largely economic, this alone should not necessarily make them objectionable,’ the report says.

But whatever the motivation for creating them, whatever they’re called and whatever they look like, and whether they’re objected to or welcomed, faith spaces will certainly be an increasingly common topic of conversation in HR and related communities.

‘These spaces certainly aren’t going away,’ concludes Sanderson. ‘And the big question now is how one makes them qualitative, as well as functional.’

About the author

Andrew Baird

Andrew is the CEO of HRville. He is also Employer Brand Director of Blackbridge Communications, Editorial Director of Professionals in Law and an associate of The Smarty Train. Previously, he was the MD of TCS Advertising.