CorpComms Magazine

Just over 10 years ago, a franchise in southern Texas that ran 65 Taco Bell fast food outlets faced a major problem. While the business was doing well financially, nobody seemed to want to work there: staff turnover was running at 300 percent a year.

Faced with such a challenge, many businesses would have bowed to the inevitable - raising wages and making shifts more flexible - and the resulting cost. The franchise chose a rather different path, however. It turned to God - but it didn't opt for candlelit vigils and lengthy prayers to the Almighty. Instead, it simply hired three chaplains to provide comfort for employees as part of their benefit package. Within three years, staff turnover had been reduced to 95 percent - a miracle by industry standards.

'People also see us as a business productivity tool,' explains Gil Stricklin, the founder and chief executive of Dallas-based Marketplace Chaplains USA, which supplies chaplains to Taco Bell. 'Around 45 percent of Americans are looking for a new job at any one time, and of those who are looking for a new place to work, almost half say it's because the company they currently work for doesn't appreciate them. If the business is taking an interest in its workers, however, the workers are more likely to be happy and productive, and that's where we come in.'

Corporate chaplains are becoming an increasingly well-used resource in the US. They are springing up everywhere, with some estimates suggesting that about 4,000 tend America's workplaces. Marketplace Chaplains, the country's biggest provider of corporate chaplains, started in 1984 when Stricklin, a retired chaplain to the American Air Force, decided to introduce his skills into the business world. Since 2001 the organisation has doubled in size, and it now employs 2,100 chaplains at 300 companies in 46 states. It adds a new client every seven days.

Comfort zone

It is common to see chaplains during times of industrial strife - Rover chaplains saw their workload quadruple when the car maker was sold off - and even more so after serious accidents. One of the enduring images of the Sago mining disaster last year, when 13 miners in West Virginia were trapped for two days, was of the chaplain holding vigils by candlelight with the missing miners' families.

Typically, chaplains visit the workplace once or twice a week and are generally on call around the clock for emergencies. They may wear a formal suit or a casual outfit, depending on the workplace, but always leave their religious garb at home. Chaplains can make hospital visits, offer marital advice or officiate at weddings or funerals. While they keep track of the number of people they see for their corporate clients, they are never asked to disclose the content of the consultations.

'We come into a business at the invitation of the employer,' says Stricklin. 'In a way we are just like any other employee benefit, such as health insurance. We come in around once a week and just basically check on the employees. They don't have to talk to us if they don't want to. It's completely voluntary and confidential, but they can chat to us about anything they want.

'The first time our chaplains come in, employees might just want to talk about fishing, or whether they saw David Beckham playing the night before. But maybe one of their family has died, or their son just got arrested for marijuana possession. They may remember the guy they were talking to about fishing and think, Oh yes, I could talk to him about this.'

Religious instruction

Marketplace Chaplains uses employees of all different Christian denominations. All have been ordained or attended a seminary, and receive technical training and a certification. 'We give advice based on biblical teaching,' explains Stricklin.

In an increasingly globalised world, however, the chaplaincy is not averse to bringing in religious leaders from other faiths. 'One time we organized for a Buddhist monk to hold a funeral at somebody's workplace because that's what the employee's widow had asked for,' Stricklin adds.

The chaplains see their role as reviving a lost link, a connection to a time when members of the community would be regular church goers or at least knew their priest and could go to him in times of need.

Sometimes requests are specific to the workplace. 'In one meat processing plant our chaplain was approached by a single mother who was working a night shift and who was upset because she never got to see her son. She asked the chaplain if he could do anything,' recalls Stricklin. 'Our chaplains always say they can't give employees a pay rise, or get them hired or fired, but they can act as a third-party intermediary in some cases.'

Businesses are also waking up to the financial benefits of running a chaplaincy scheme. When Coca-Cola Bottling tested a pilot programme for chaplains at its Nashville plant, it measured changes in productivity, safety, quality, profitability and employee perspective.

'All objective criteria improved,' recalls former vice chairman Robert Pettus. What's more, 'two people were talked out of suicide and now lead productive lives, several rocky marriages were reconciled, and many employees received help with financial or family problems.' Surprisingly, the employees confirmed that they would take fewer benefits to keep the chaplain programme going. Coca-Cola Bottling now has 25 chaplains serving employees at 58 sites.

Care in the community

In the US, where about 98 percent of people claim to have some kind of religious faith, chaplains might be expected, but the UK has also seen an explosion in this area. Reverend Andrew Jolly is the chaplain for the UK oil and gas industry. The post was created in the aftermath of the Chinook helicopter tragedy in Shetland, when 45 men, mainly oil workers, were killed. Jolly has an annual programme of visits to offshore oil rigs in the waters around the UK, each lasting between 24 and 48 hours, and also visits onshore workers.

'I basically care for those who work in the industry, conducting funerals and memorial services,' explains Jolly. 'Working on a rig is a difficult lifestyle that these people lead away from their families. Although modern technology means they can communicate by email or telephone, they are separated by distance. When you stand out on those rigs and you can see nothing for miles, it makes you think about your own mortality.'

Like his American colleagues, Jolly believes the need for corporate chaplains has risen as increased mobility among the workforce means fewer people are anchored in one community. 'People don't have the same connection to their church they used to have 20 or 30 years ago when they knew their priest,' he says. 'Surveys suggest that even though many people don't go to church any more, the majority - some 70 percent - still claim to have some belief in a god or a higher power. So we try to offer the kind of community the church would once have offered.

'I see my role as evangelical, though I don't go out with a bible ready to smack people over the head with it. That's not my aim, but I hope my presence will maybe sow some seeds that will come to fruit a few years down the line.'

Insurance giant Aviva and confectionery group Nestlé are among the firms that sponsor the York Workplace Chaplaincy, a group of chaplains covering various workforces in the Diocese of York. For Aviva, whose Norwich Union business is based in York, the benefits lie in boosting employee morale - which in turn improves health and productivity - and in helping staff deal with their problems in the workplace without having to take time off.

Sympathetic ear

'We were one of the group's earliest partner companies,' says an Aviva spokesperson. 'The chaplaincy provides support during significant times such as bereavement, serious illness, breakdown of relationships or loss of employment. It aims to care for each individual within the workplace and, wherever possible, help them work through whatever issue they might have while remaining at work. Often this is what's best for that person and the employer, in terms of both team morale and cost.'

Aviva isn't alone. The London Stock Exchange has its own chaplain, while the Diocese of London provides a chaplain to Canary Wharf, where workers are many but churches are scarce. The experience of these organisations, together with that of their US counterparts, suggests that even if faith in God is not a business requisite, it might just boost the bottom line to have Him onside.

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