Why support the Mental Health of your employees
Mindfulness means being present.
Mindfulness is becoming an increasingly popular practice in our personal lives and from a professional point of view. And for good reasons. Corporate mindfulness is now a thing. A growing number of companies and organizations are now offering wellness and mindfulness activities to improve workplace wellbeing. If you are an employer, this is why you should consider a mindfulness program for your employees.
What is mindfulness?
The mind is often busy thinking about the future or ruminating about the past. Mindfulness means living in the present moment. The here and now. It means appreciating the world around us and observing our thoughts for what they are. Just thoughts. They don’t need to be good or bad, happy or sad. With mindfulness practice, you become able to observe your thoughts in a non-judgemental manner. Mindfulness takes practice. It’s like training your brain to become more present. And why not offer the possibility to build this practice while at work? There are excellent reasons why workplace mindfulness is a win-win for the employees and the employers.
Read more about the power of mindfulness at the workplace in my previous article.
Mindfulness boost creativity
It is scientifically proven that mindfulness helps foster a feeling of calm, clarity, concentration. Additionally, mindfulness can be an antidote to stress and a creativity boost. Another benefit of mindfulness practice is that it reduces brain distraction. These are all factors contributing to greater productivity.
Mindfulness train your emotional intelligence
One of the significant advantages of mindfulness practice is that it allows you to build a core emotional intelligence. The non-judgemental approach of mindfulness develops empathy.
Therefore, mindfulness improves interpersonal relationships and communication. And in the corporate world, this eventually translates to outstanding leadership.
Offering mental health support to your employer is the way to happier and more productive employees.
Workplace mindfulness builds resilience
In today’s fast-paced corporate world, challenges are always around the corner.
However, with consistent workplace mindfulness practice, your employees will build resilience to face setbacks and problems. For example, clinical studies found that mindfulness reduces stress and anxiety.
Caring about your employees’ wellbeing is the first step to take if you want to lead by example.
Mindfulness creates a better workplace
Practicing mindfulness reduces age and unconscious racial bias. Therefore, people are more open-minded, and they get rid of any, for example. Even the ones they did not know they had. Hence, not only will you optimize your employees’ performance. Even more importantly, you will contribute to creating a better workplace where your best employees would want to stay.
A real-life example of workplace mindfulness
Nowadays, there are several workplace mindfulness programs, fully bespoke to the office space, the demographic, and the company environment of different organizations. For example, the program Search Inside Yourself (SIY) is a mindfulness program initially developed at Google. It takes an evidence-based approach, combining neuroscience, attention-training, and emotional intelligence. SIY is a life-changing workshop that allows for profound transformation through accessible and applicable content. 71% of the more than 6,000 individuals who took part in the program report a better ability to cope with stress and bounce back from difficult situations. They also noticed an ability to increase focus and return to the present moment. You can bring SIY to your own organizations, joining hundreds of companies offering the program to their employees. We are talking about Deloitte, Ford, Netflix, LinkedIn, American Express, FitBit, the United Nations. You’ll be in good company.
