More and more businesses are seeing the benefits of building a mindful culture in the workplace. Offering mindfulness training to staff can help attract, nurture and retain the best talents. And when embedded as part of an organisation’s ethos it can help create a truly inclusive, kinder culture as qualities such as respect, non-judgement and collaboration are fostered. Mindfulness is a very practical and down-to-earth skill backed by science. We are training our brains to be more alert and responsive to what’s going on inside and around us. We practise being present rather than getting caught up in the host of distractions that are a feature of daily life. As we train our attention we become aware of what we are doing, thinking and feeling. We can then choose our responses without becoming overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on. That means we can manage stress better and have more satisfying and fruitful working relationships.
On the individual level
Helps workers at all levels reduce stress, respond to challenges with greater skill as well as improving focus, agility, resilience and wellbeing.
On the collective level
Helps reduce conflict and fosters a culture of kindness, respect and collaboration through improving self-awareness, listening skills and perspective-taking.
Mindfulness doesn’t of course just happen on its own – it takes regular training over the long-term to truly embed mindfulness in an organisation. But benefits can be seen from early on for those who practise.
The NICE “Mental Wellbeing at Work Guideline” published in 2022 stated: “..the committee agreed that mindfulness, yoga and meditation were most effective overall in reducing job stress and mental health symptoms and having a positive effect on employee mental wellbeing.”
The Hult research paper, “The Mindful leader” 2016 – by Megan Reitz, Michael Chaskalson, Sharon Olivier & Lee Walker, stated “Our data indicate that our participants perceived mindfulness training to have a positive impact on resilience and on collaboration and leading in complexity.”
And another research paper found:-“When mindfulness becomes a shared social practice in an organisation and permeates routines, processes and practices between people and across teams, then the organisation as a whole becomes more resilient and performs more sustainably.”
Weick & Sutcliffe (2001) Mindfulness and the quality of organisational Attention. Organisation science, from the Mindfulness Initiative 2015 Mindful Nation UK report.
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