How A Mindful Workplace Culture Improves The Bottom Line
The list of benefits are growing. There is a wealth of research showing clear benefits across the board. In a well-researched book called Firms of Endearment written by Jag Sheth, follows companies bottom-line over the course of 15 year
His research demonstrates that companies that look after their employees health and wellbeing and cultivating a culture of compassion, altruism, joy, empathy, and authenticity – through mindfulness and other practices- have a phenomenally greater bottom line than companies who do not share the transcendence philosophy.
To list just a few items of evidence:
Research from Westminster University in 2014 found that when they put London base corporate leaders on a 12 week mindfulness course they were better able to inspire the company vision, lead and motivate others with greater compassion, and enhanced their moral intelligence.
Another study in 2014 placed employees from the The Dow Chemical Company on the eight-week mindfulness for work programme and found that employees’ levels of stress had significantly decreased while resiliency and vigour had increased. The results we even maintained six months later at follow-up.
A collaborating between University of Cambridge, University of Singapore, and Imperial College London in 2014 observed positive correlations between the mindfulness traits taught in the MBCT course with overall increased employee wellbeing, job satisfaction, need satisfaction, and performance.
One study on University of Miami (2014) students shows clear improvement in attention span levels and task accuracy after just seven hours of mindfulness training. These benefits can certainly be applied to the workplace.
In my experience as a workplace mindfulness trainer, companies and their employees report a range of benefit not just in their working life but also in their personal life. One of the most powerful benefits I have heard is the improvement in interpersonal and communication skills. After taking my course, my clients report a remarkable capacity for their listening communication skills and how that has positively affected their working and personal relationships. The Mindful Communication workshop I have developed is by far the most requested workshop on my list.