Make Mindfulness a Workplace Priority
Three business-critical reasons why mindfulness should be a top priority for your organization — and how to make it happen.
While many of the concepts and practices behind mindfulness have existed for millennia, it’s only relatively recently that mindfulness has made its way into mainstream awareness here in the U.S. It’s only extremely recently that organizations have begun to explore what mindfulness practices and thinking could mean for employee wellbeing. And current research is now documenting how mindfulness can support overall organizational success.
At WorkMinded, we help you stay on top of these emerging trends for the future of mindfulness at work. Here are three critical reasons why mindfulness should be a top priority for you and your workplace:
Mindfulness is about more than just stress relief. It’s an essential competency for improved work outcomes and organizational sustainability. Workplace mindfulness is about much more than stress relief. It can affect organizational outcomes and sustainability. Barriers presented by stereotypes and lack of objective information often lead organizations to misidentify mindfulness as a one-off solution intended only for employee stress management. In reality, a properly sourced and executed mindfulness program can have a profound impact on employee wellbeing, workforce competencies, and organizational sustainability.
The pandemic showed us the importance of adopting a Mindfulness Mindset. Mindfulness skills (such as navigating change and tolerating ambiguity) are essential to success in an increasingly complex and interconnected business culture. Mindfulness has emerged as an increasingly popular topic for the future of work in a post-pandemic global society. Organizations and employees are learning to navigate the uncharted waters of a forced evolution toward a new type of normal. The role and impact of mindfulness in the workplace has gained increased attention as organizations search for ways to support employees who are taking on increasingly complex roles, and to enhance business outcomes in an increasingly interconnected global landscape.
Mindfulness plays an essential role in the trend toward human-centric workplaces. It helps drive total employee wellbeing and can be a critical element in your employer value proposition. It seems likely that workplaces of the future will be both more flexible and more demanding than ever before, with lines continuing to blur between work and personal life. We continue to see the necessity of developing a human-centric philosophy of work that truly prioritizes the wellbeing of people and supports them with an integrated approach to health and wellness, both inside and outside of the office. Including mindfulness as part of a holistic approach to employee wellbeing shows both current employees and potential talent that your organization values total wellbeing — physically, mentally, and emotionally.
As more and more organizations are choosing to explore what workplace mindfulness can achieve for their employees and their companies, practitioners in charge of employee wellness are often left to make their best guess at finding the correct mindfulness approach for their organization. We want to empower these practitioners to be informed consumers of workplace mindfulness and to shape a program that will work best for their specific needs.
One of the goals of WorkMinded is to provide the tools and information needed to successfully source, launch, and maintain an effective workplace mindfulness program that supports both employee wellbeing and organizational success. This includes an examination of root factors behind implementation of workplace mindfulness programs, such as return on investment, ethical considerations, and sustainable mindfulness program design.
We encourage you to continue to learn more and think further about mindfulness in the workplace. In a world that now requires constant innovation and adaptation to endure, organizations can no longer afford to leave the success of their mindfulness programs to chance.