How Spiritual wellness is changing the workplace
In this episode of RAPT BizTrendsTV, Nokulinda Mkhize, a cultural advisor, integral coach, speaker, and practising songoma, with nearly two decades of experience in indigenous healing, talks about how spirituality is changing the world of work.
28 Oct 2025
Spiritual wellness at work is a rising trend that calls on us to rethink how we show up as leaders, colleagues, and human beings in the workplace.
Mkhize, also known as Gogo Linda, and the co-founder of Mashaba Media, is pioneering a new way to look at leadership, success and organisational culture through the lens of spiritual and ancestral wellness.
In this conversation, she also offers practical tools for creating spiritually aligned and emotionally intelligent workspaces.
Why now?
The rise in spiritual wellness stems from the increased volatility and uncertainty of the modern economy and the realisation that chasing profit by any means necessary is not enough for the sustainability of any organisation.
There is also a realisation of the importance of people as a resource for growth and development, and what a human being is within the professional world.
Younger people, in particular Gen Z and Millennials, are demanding more meaning, mental health supports and emotional safety, not just at work, but also from the brands and businesses they support.
In addition, we cannot ignore the rising cases of burnout and chronic illness, and this, she says, is across all the generations.
Talking about traditional healers and spiritual practitioners like herself, Mkhize says African indigenous spirituality and practices are just like every other spiritual practice, and they are finding a place in the mainstream.
“Businesses are being deliberate in their integration of spirituality into the workplace, so that the workplace and spirituality are no longer separate.
"Instead, businesses are seeing the importance of bringing this conversation to the forefront for their employees and for the benefit of the organisation."
It’s a slow shift, she adds.
The pursuit of holistic wellness
Defining spiritual wellness at work in the context of South Africa and Africa – and perhaps even the world - is the pursuit of holistic wellness.
This is holistic in terms of the economic, systemic, historical, financial, future, and personal, etc. to see the full picture of who a person is.
"Then we look at how that is defined within the context of moving forward in this economy in a way that does justice to that.
"This also needs to allow organisations to grow into the future, build better communities and relationships between clients, businesses and their brands, and also the people who bring them to life and work inside of them," she says.
When companies prioritise the full humanity of their employees, one of the big benefits is profitability. It also translates into the company’s sustainability for the future as there is less turnover, burnout and mental illness, while output and productivity rise.
One of the major motivations for people to seek more outside of just their professional roles is the simple question: “Is this it?”
When people become curious about what else there is and what is possible for them, they set off on a quest for wholeness, integration, exploring different types of intelligence, and then they integrate this into their lives, including their professional lives.
Mkhize explains that when you think about the spiritual wellness of employees, it is not about their personal relationship with their ancestors and making room for them to pray or meditate.
People are human beings
It is about taking care of the entire person.
Material concerns affect how people conduct themselves and will influence their spiritual wellness, so if you can help people navigate uncertainty in their material lives, it settles them spiritually. When people are settled spiritually, they can do more - they are more productive.
Spiritual wellness is material and social safety.
Equitable and just labour practices contribute towards the spiritual wellness of employees, such as four-day work weeks and hybrid working models.
Western Europe, and some other areas of the Western World as well as South America, are getting this more right than other areas in the world.
"It is about recognising that people are human beings. We are not just AI replicas, we are something more. Taking cognisance of that has wonderful benefits for company culture and company profitability going forward," she explains.
Steps to build spiritual workplaces
Mkhize outlines steps organisations can take to build more spiritual workplaces.
- To seek understanding and be curious. The damage of chasing profits and productivity is well known. The new question is: how can we do this in a way that aligns our people with our processes and still enables us to take this organisation forward?
- Take it into your strategic planning and brainstorming, and once that is the case, you can then move forward to create policies around it and be curious about what is available, where your company is falling short and how you can build a cohesive framework into your place of work.
Life-giving
"No one size fits all, but it begins with curiosity, and that curiosity must be steeped in a desire to take tangible action, which includes understanding where you are falling short,” she explains.
We have come from an era where we have waited to be told what to do, and that hasn't worked out well for us.
"In the next decade, unless organisations align themselves with what is relevant, meaningful and life-giving for people, they run the risk of alienating themselves because people don't just want to be passive consumers anymore.
"South African organisations can either lean into that and lead - we have our principles laid out for us with Ubuntu. We can either jump on this now and use what we have or we can fall behind and then be dictated to by external forces, which everyone knows is a big frustration," she says.
RAPT BizTrendsTV
BizTrendsTV is a collaboration between Bizcommunity, Rapt Creative and The Real-Networks consortium, and the first-of-its-kind trend show focusing on global topics impacting future socio-economic trends from a uniquely Afrocentric perspective.
Hosted by a leading voice in the African business trend ecosphere - fast-talking, fast-thinking Bronwyn Williams - futurist, economist, future finance specialist and business trends analyst - in conversation on trending topics such as AI, influencer farming, billionaire bunkers, distraction democracy, Gen Bees, hyper-capitalism, trade wars, exclusionary geopolitical policies, hot wars and more with leading PanAfrican futurists.
A new episode is available on the last Tuesday of every month at 8 am on Bizcommunity’s official website and via The Real Network digital platforms.
About Danette Breitenbach
Danette Breitenbach is a marketing & media editor at Bizcommunity.com. Previously she freelanced in the marketing and media sector, including for Bizcommunity. She was editor and publisher of AdVantage, the publication that served the marketing, media and advertising industry in southern Africa. She has worked extensively in print media, mainly B2B. She has a Masters in Financial Journalism from Wits.
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