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and Bessie had lived on farms all their lives. When they married, they thought that they would take over Jack's father's farm. But their lives went in a different direction when Jack's father died and Jack learned that the farm had to be sold to pay off debts that had built up over the last ten years due to poor crops. They considered living at the farm owned by Bessie's family, but there were several older brothers in line to inherit the farm. So, they decided to go to Toronto and look for work and a place to live. Jack found a job in a new factory that made stoves. When he started work, the owner had set things up so that a group of men built a complete stove from the parts made at a foundry. The work was hard and dirty, but Jack liked his fellow workers and was pleased to see the finished stove. However, after a trip to Ford's plant in Detroit, the factory's owner decided to convert to a Ford-type assembly line. Now each worker did one task over and over. The number of stoves produced increased greatly, and the owner was able to pay the workers more. Jack appreciated the extra money, but he hated the monotonous work.

      Bessie spent her time at home in their small house on the outskirts of town. She cleaned and cared for their four children. When they were old enough, the children went to school. As they grew up, Bessie found being at home more and more lonely during the day. She missed the country. But Bessie and Jack were strong people and did not show their frustrations to each other. The family went to church every Sunday, and gradually Jack and Bessie became involved in church projects. Jack became a church warden and felt that he regained some of the pride he had lost at the assembly line, where a manager watched his every move.

      Post-modern society

      While there are still many elements of an agrarian society and an industrial society in Canada today, we have moved into a new era. What it will finally be called is hard to say. It is characterized by changes in the labour force, in work, and in organizational structures; by the use of information technology; by new ethical issues; and by individualism, fragmentation, and a search for spirituality. We want to explore what some of these changes and developments mean for the workplace today.

      The Canadian population and the labour force have become more diverse with every generation. The labour force is made up of men and women from many cultural backgrounds, bringing a vast range of skills and values to the organizations that employ them. And Canadians bring a wide range of spiritual beliefs to the workplace, although mostly invisibly and silently.

      Most Canadians work in the service industries now: tourism, education, and government. Large industry is still present, notably the automobile industry, but the trend is toward small and medium sized organizations. Individuals are likely to have more than one career in their lifetime, not just multiple jobs. One projection is that the average will be four or five different careers. The rise and fall of “dot-com” businesses operating through the Internet has shown us just how quickly major trends can change in today's society.

      The current stage in societal development has been called “post-modernism.” Although it defies any exact definition, one of the characteristics of post-modernism is extreme fluidity, with a preference for diversity over uniformity, fragmentation over cohesion, individualism over communalism, and ambivalence or open-endedness over certainty. Everything is perceived to be in a state of flux. Change and uncertainty are the new normal. The individual must decide what is right for him or herself, and there is no longer automatic respect for institutions of governance and authority.

      The workplace in a post-modern society poses new challenges. It is unpredictable — careers can soar or crash with very little warning. It is demanding — the number of hours spent at work is increasing, despite the earlier projections that this would be a leisured generation. It is dislocated — many people drive significant distances to work, or work from home at computers, miles or even provinces away from the organization that employs them. And the post-modern workplace is secular: faith has no place in it, and the question of religious belief or practice is passed over in silence or embarrassment.

      Family snapshot, 2003: Johnny and Liz

      Johnny and Liz live in a spacious executive home north of Toronto. Liz is a systems programmer and Johnny is a corporate lawyer. They both work downtown and love the fast pace of Toronto. They have thought about having children, but Liz has decided to wait until she is at a point in her career when she can take some time off. Johnny agrees with this, but worries that they will wait too long. Their parents on both sides went to church, but Johnny and Liz do not see the relevance and would hate to give up their Sunday mornings — about the only time that they have for themselves.

      Recently Liz went through a difficult period. The information technology company that she worked for had downsized, and her division was sold to another company. She declined a position offered by the new company because it was at a lower salary than her previous job. Liz felt that she would have no trouble finding another position. Unfortunately she entered the labour market at a bad time and could not find a job consistent with her experience and skills. Johnny was very supportive but, like Liz, he started to worry about being able to handle their huge mortgage payments if Liz could not find work soon.

      As the days went by Liz felt more and more discouraged. Johnny and her parents were kind and told her that she would soon find a job. But she felt panic-stricken and alone, with no anchor to hold onto. Without the income she was used to, she began to wonder if her life was worthwhile at all. Like Johnny, Liz has no religious affiliation. She describes herself sometimes as “spiritual,” but she has never explored what this might mean.

      From integration to fragmentation

      Societal trends from agrarian to industrial to post-modern can be characterized as moving from integration to separation and fragmentation, and from communal to individualistic. Spirituality and religion are now strictly private and personal matters, not societal or even family ones. Many couples raise their children with no religious beliefs or practices, either because it seems to have no relevance to life, or in the hope that they will choose a spiritual path for themselves as adults. The idea of a family worshipping together and handing on a tradition has been widely rejected. According to Statistics Canada, before 1971 only 1 % of the Canadian adult population identified themselves as having no religion. By 2001, in certain provinces the number had climbed to as high as 37%, and a total of 16% of Canadians overall reported that they had no religion.

      At the same time, the different aspects of being human — emotional, physical, mental, social, spiritual — are treated as separate categories. We have a vast variety of places to go for all the parts of ourselves to be taken care of: a therapist, a chiropractor, a medical doctor, a book club, a service club, a church, a meditation centre, a Tai Chi class. Each is usually quite independent of the others. So the workplace is seen as just one more place, to which we bring certain parts of ourselves. No wonder the neighbourhoods we live in often consist of strangers living side by side. We may have no idea at all what the person across the street does for a living, or believes in, or wrestles with. As our society has become more fragmented, so it has become more anonymous.

      The result can be a feeling of dislocation and disorientation: where do I belong, and who am I anyway? Am I the person who drives to work and relates efficiently and effectively with those in my field, or am I the spouse and parent who has difficult teenage children, ageing relatives, and a bad back? Which role is the real me? Do they have any point of overlap, or are they different worlds? And what do I do when they spill over into each other?

      In the workplace we can create the self-image that we choose: our colleagues or clients rarely know anything about our private lives. But there can be a terrible loss in this — loss of depth, loss of integration, loss of reality. Our work in the world can be out of step with our inner life and longings. It may pay the bills, but at the same time it can cause depression or frustration if our soul is not engaged. It is as though we are leaving part of ourselves at the door when we walk into work.

       Fred's story

      There are two sides to my work. I am a spouse, father, teacher, researcher; writer, and professor of sociology. As a professor for many years I was quite reserved and formal at the university. Although

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