The Benefits of Mindfulness at Work

When meditation finds its way into a conversation, the mental image conjured is often or of serene peace and seldom of productivity and sustainability. Yet, this image is often the product of cultural stereotypes and many companies have been finding out in recent years that bridging the two is not only possible but extremely beneficial for both employer and employee. To drive this point home we are going to look at how mindfulness can have a positive impact on your company.

Understanding Mindfulness

Before we jump into how mindfulness can be a force of good within a business or in one’s career, we need to understand what the term actually means.

Mindfulness refers to a form of meditation practice that makes use of a basic human ability to focus and become fully aware of where we are, what we are doing, along with the inner and outer sensations sprung from our current situation.

Now that we have a working definition of mindfulness, we can jump into all the great benefits it can bring in the context of work.

Performance

Recent research has demonstrated that mindfulness meditation not only enhances the performance of employees but increases their productivity as well. This positive effect can be explained by the effect meditation has on these three human qualities:

Focus: Practicing mindfulness meditation with some regularity even for short periods of time, has been proven to significantly improve an employee's ability to focus and retain attention. This improved ability to focus is invaluable in the work environment as it directly influences how much of the time we spend in front of the computer, is actually dedicated to the task at hand.

Resilience: Another quality improved through mindfulness meditation that proves to be paramount in employee efficiency and morale is resilience, that is, one’s ability to resist and act under stress. As a known treatment for stress, mindfulness helps workers avoid unhelpful emotional reactions when placed under pressure.

Creativity: An extremely important practice to foment in a company, creativity incentivizes employees to work with each other and elaborate original solutions for the different challenges of office life. Research has also demonstrated that meditation (especially the Open Monitoring method) can be a great boost to creativity inside and outside the workplace.

Absenteeism

Investopedia defines absenteeism as “the habitual non-presence of an employee at his or her job”, a behavior the causes of which can be varied, yet the overall impact on the company as a whole tends to be the same. A company that is facing problems with absenteeism amongst its workforce can find a great solution in mindfulness as it tends to positively influence us in the following three categories.

Stress: We have already touched on how mindfulness can make us more resistant to stress. However, there is a clear correlation between a stressful work environment and absenteeism rates, therefore, by making us more resilient, mindfulness is also making us more disposed to show up for work in the morning as stress will not be taking as big of a toll.

Mental Health: Issues regarding mental health such as anxiety and depression also have a large influence on employee absenteeism. Mindfulness can provide relief here, as it has been proven to help treat mental disorders such as anxiety and depression by decreasing ruminative thinking and dysfunctional beliefs.

Physical Health: Mindfulness can help to reduce the occurrence of “sick days” as it has been proven to significantly boost the immune system as well as help preventing serious conditions like high blood pressure, or even catastrophic events such as heart attacks and strokes.

Engagement

Qualities like customer satisfaction, employee loyalty, job satisfaction, and so on tend to have one common denominator: Engagement. If an employee is only worried about marching in at the beginning of their shift and coming out with a paycheck, a companies competitiveness tends to suffer as a result.

By nurturing all the benefits listed above, along with some others like hope, optimism, and self-efficacy, mindfulness tends to have a tremendous impact on an employee’s commitment to the company.

Talent Acquisition and Retention

Did you know that replacing a worker can cost at least 20% of an annual salary? With numbers like this, it’s no wonder that most companies offer incentives to keep their best employees. In the competition for the best brain in the market, t-shirts and ping-pong tables can only take a company so far, what truly makes a difference at the end of the day is whether your company acknowledges the needs of those under their employ. No matter what entertainment apparel, financial or social incentives your employee has, if working in your company is doing them harm, they will eventually go somewhere else.

Incentivizing meditation amongst your employees ensures that even if their job is stressful, they have the fortitude and focus necessary to perform without the feeling of burnout that can eventually make them want to quit. It also shows that you care for them and would go the extra mile to ensure their wellbeing.

Conclusion

Maybe what you read here was new to you, yet more and more businesses are realizing that the health and quality of life of employees are directly linked to their commitment towards the company and how meditation can play a huge part in improving that. So if you want to experience the power of mindfulness, and if you’d like to bring its benefits to your company, or to your professional life, get in contact with us here.