Practicing mindfulness at work means embracing the here and now rather than mulling over the past or overthinking the future. It can improve your employees’ stress management, increase their focus, improve the quality of their interactions with colleagues, stimulate their creativity, or even enhance their decision-making. Do you want to learn more? Then read on!
What Is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness itself can be defined in many different ways, but one common understanding is that it means cultivating a kind, non-judging awareness focused on the present moment.
Introducing mindfulness at work means embracing an approach in the workplace that leaves the past behind. Additionally, it supports seeing what is happening, for instance, what emotions you/your colleagues feel, but without analyzing it – simply being aware.
The Benefits of Practicing Mindfulness at Work
Practicing mindfulness has many benefits, both regarding your business operations and to the overall well-being of your employees. Let’s explore the pros of this approach.
Improved Stress Management
Recognizing what is happening but not judging or overly analyzing it means that your employees have fewer things to stress about – it is what it is. As a result, they feel less pressure and feel better about themselves. Studies conducted by companies such as Google, Aetna, and Intel have demonstrated that fostering mindfulness in the workplace can reduce stress levels while enhancing focus, thoughtfulness, decision-making skills, and overall well-being.
Additionally, mindfulness also lets your employees see that they are stressed and counteract, for instance, by relaxing for a while in the break room or engaging in a quick chat in the kitchen while making coffee.
Increased Focus
Intrusive thoughts are a distraction, and the main benefit of embracing mindfulness at work is that it lets your employees avoid them. Not worrying about the future (or dwelling on the past) makes them more determined to do their job, as they stop worrying about being judged. As a result, their focus increases.
Quality Human Interactions
This can be seen as a benefit when it comes to mindfulness for remote workers, but it’s especially a huge asset for those working in traditional offices. Being mindful lets your employees be more aware of the feelings and communication between themselves and their colleagues, which leads to better quality interactions in the workplace. As a result, you get a more positive atmosphere in the office, which makes your teams more productive and motivated.
What’s more, embracing mindfulness also reduces the number of conflicts. It is so because being mindful leads to being more compassionate and understanding when a threat of potential conflict occurs. Plus, mindful people are less likely to project their frustration on their coworkers, which further reduces the number of arguments in the workplace.
Increased Productivity
When your employees stop worrying about deadlines (it isn’t equal to stopping following them!), relationships, and the distractions, they will find work much more pleasurable. Then, they’ll start doing it better and faster.
This is one of the key benefits of mindfulness at work – it stimulates productivity. Not only do your team members feel better, but also become more efficient. The situation becomes a win-win.
Enhanced Creativity
All the negative thoughts, the worrying, the overthinking are blockers preventing your employees from exercising their full potential. By embracing mindfulness, you get rid of them and therefore unlock your team members.
What does this result in? Much higher creativity! This is especially important if you manage a highly creative team, like marketing, since it lets you reach much higher and find new ways to achieve the desired (or even better) results.
Reduced Employee Burnout
With less stress and pressure, your employees don’t feel overwhelmed and get satisfaction from their work – they are less likely to feel burned out.
This has been confirmed in various studies. For example, Ume Laila Malik & Javed Aslam’s Effects of Mindfulness on Job Burnout and Work Engagement showed that the more mindfulness is embraced, the less likely job burnout is, though this is also affected by work engagement.
How to Embrace Mindfulness at Work?
You now might be wondering how to be more mindful at work. Well, first of all, you need to understand what level of mindfulness you are on.
Do your employees understand that you want to embrace this approach? If not, you need to make sure that you want them to focus on the here and now, for instance, by supporting them, not mentioning the past, and showing the meaning behind your work. Had you already done that, you might consider supporting mindful initiatives such as creating dedicated quiet spaces, offering yoga classes in the office, or preparing things that will help them relax, for example, table football.
The Takeaway
Understanding the benefits of practicing mindfulness at work, you should be well aware that it is a direction that you should pursue. Through this, you will improve the efficiency of your workplace and improve the well-being of your workers – you get to kill two birds with one stone!
Did you like this article? Then you should also read about mindful workspaces!
Sources:
Malik, U. L., & Aslam, J. (2019). Effect of mindfulness on job burnout and work engagement. Global Scientific Journal, 7(4).