NEWSFOCUS
thought and problem-solving under pressure and had better control of their emotions. Veteran consultant Dr. Stephen Josephs believes that meditative focus improves both health and business intuition. “The benefits of mindfulness meditation do not exist in a vacuum; mindfulness meditation not only lowers your blood pressure, it also offers a host of other positives, including increasing business acumen,” says Stephen, who has coached executives for more than 30 years. “It sharpens your intuitive business sense.
Mind over matter
With an average of 40 days’ unpaid overtime a year, Britons work the longest hours in Europe. These long hours, plus a heavy workload, can cause stress, and stress-related absence is costing UK employers dearly every year. Promoting mindfulness in the workplace could increase the happiness levels, and in turn the efficiency, of your staff, writes Katie Shevlin
f workers are feeling stressed or uninspired, they will often struggle to release their creative edge, find happiness in their work and be impactful in what they do. The latest buzzword in employee engagement is “mindfulness” and organisations and institutions from the House of Commons to Starbucks are taking note.
I Neil Seligman, founder of The Conscious
Professional, knows all too well the demands of a high-pressure work environment, having spent 10 years working as a civil barrister at a leading chambers. Neil was prompted to create his own training and coaching consultancy in 2012 through a desire to bring
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the gifts of mindfulness, which he had studied and followed personally for many years, to a wider audience and particularly to those living with high-stress jobs.
Mindfulness, which is based on Buddhist meditation practices, is the awareness and acceptance of one’s experience in the present moment and without judgment. Research has shown that executives and employees are better able to cope with the stresses that come with modern careers and professional lives when they learn and practice mindfulness and discover how to integrate it into their daily lives. A recent study of US Marines found that those trained in mindfulness were more capable of complex
By relaxing your body, breathing evenly and paying attention to the present moment, you notice things you might otherwise miss.” ‘Mindfulness’ and meditation by their very names may suggest something a bit ‘touchy- feely’ or new agey for the workplace. When Google first offered mindfulness training, take up was low. When it re-branded, however, as the ‘Search Inside Yourself programme’, as a way to develop emotional intelligence, the number of participants suddenly grew. Many of its engineers were already aware of their deficits in this area. Engaging the workforce in mindfulness – helpful approaches • Sell the benefits and potential impact on the bottom line
• Highlight the research backing up mindfulness
• Know your audience and don’t feel obliged to call it mindfulness – for example, you may wish to talk about awareness or presence instead
• Keep it secular • Be realistic about how much time people will be able to or want to set aside for practice
• Encourage little-and-often practice • Set aside a room where employees can meditate or go to take time out undisturbed
• Offer regular mindfulness training programmes (whatever you call them)
• Include mindfulness within management and leadership development programmes either explicitly or, for example, within a module on emotional intelligence or resilience
THE FACTS • Stress affects one in five of the working population from the newest recruit in the post room to the board of directors.
• It is now the single biggest cause of sickness in the UK.
• Over 105 million days are lost to stress each year – costing UK employers £1.24billion.
(source Health & Safety Executive)
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