In this week’s Workplace Wellness, we explore how adding a mindfulness or meditation-based app to your routine can reduce stress and improve relationships.
The past year has been one filled with overwhelming stress for employees. Multiple studies have been pointing out the truth: employee burnout is on the rise. In a recent survey from Indeed.com, over half (52%) of survey respondents are experiencing burnout in 2021—up from the 43% who said the same in Indeed’s pre-Covid-19 survey.
Workplace stress has reached a fever pitch and many companies are asking themselves – what can we do?
Following in the footsteps of larger companies, many organizations are responding by investing in Mindfulness- or Meditation-based workplace well-being programs. There is ample evidence that mindfulness-based programs support employees in reducing stress and burnout while improving relationships and overall health. One of the most impactful methods of bringing meditation and well-being practices to the workplace is the use of a “challenge” – promoting a streak of practice across the organization to boost habit formation. These can be highly effective, but many companies are wondering where to start to ensure successful engagement for their employees can feel overwhelming.
For organizations new to meditation challenges, here’s a quick guide on how to get started:
Step 1: Build Awareness
Educating your employees on the scientific research behind these types of programs is one of the most effective ways to influence adoption. When offering a new well-being program, erring on the side of over-communicating the evidence-based benefits of these programs can drive increased engagement.
There are many ways to build awareness within an organization such as lunch and learn speaker series, company newsletters, flyers, videos, blogs, and team presentations. Ultimately, the best way to create awareness is communicating through multiple channels with consistent reminders so team members can easily access the information.
Step 2: Create Motivation
When it comes to behavior change, motivation is key. Employees are motivated by different things but some effective tactics include: peer support and influence (company-wide calendar holds, competition across departments), financial incentives, or meeting personal health and wellness goals. Healthy Minds Innovations’ workplace well-being program, Healthy Minds @Work, has found that offering a financial incentive for participation correlated to increased enrollment rates. If financial incentives aren’t an option, leverage what you already have and consider accountability partners or team challenges that will help employees lean on their social networks for support and encouragement.
Step 3: Focus on Incremental Goals
Workplace culture won’t be changed overnight from a single meditation training. Sustained benefits are the result of incremental behavior changes. The research shows that just a few minutes of meditation each day can lead to lasting well-being benefits such as increased attention, reduced stress and anxiety, and increased compassion. When rolling out a meditation challenge, make it easy. Focus on a minimal time commitment of just 5-7 minutes per day to build well-being skills and experience benefits. Frequent reminders and encouragement will help team members stick with the program and even start again if they fall behind.
Step 4: Rely on Data
The effectiveness of your mindfulness program shouldn’t be a guessing game. Engagement metrics provide strong insights about participation, retention, and they and can help your leadership team identify wellness advocates who could help to champion the program to other team members.
With Healthy Minds @Work, we use well-being assessments to help employers understand the true ROI of the program by measuring behavior change in key areas like stress, burnout, and work/life balance. With these insights, employers can understand how the program supports organizational goals such as retention, collaboration, and job satisfaction.
Step 5: Create a Supportive Culture
For a meditation challenge to be effective, creating a supportive environment where employees feel empowered to take time to support their mental well-being makes an enormous difference. Building in policies to support well-being can signal to employees that the company is taking well-being seriously.
To that end, it is key to have leaders endorse and promote the program, especially in the beginning before the launch. To support this, take the time to build in leadership involvement in the process of selecting, endorsing and implementing a meditation challenge. When employees sense the importance of the program from leadership, they are much more likely to utilize the program.
Other policies that can create a safe and encouraging culture to support a meditation challenge include ensuring team members know where to get help and providing opportunities for community building such as drop in meditation sessions, challenge “buddies”, or team celebrations for accomplishing milestones.
We hope these tips can support you in the launch of a Mindfulness- or Meditation-Based well-being program at your company. With stress and burnout on the rise, a successful program to support employee mental health can make a difference in individual well-being and the overall culture, paying back in numerous ways.
Healthy Minds @Work offers its own Healthy Minds @Work 30 Day Challenge. This 30 Day meditation challenge offers organizations a simple evidence-based approach, with supportive implementation that benefits both employees and employers. On average, Healthy Minds @Work 30 Day Challenge participants are experiencing a reduction in burnout symptoms of 25% and increased overall well-being of 33%. After working with leaders across industries as varied as tech startups, school districts, healthcare organizations, corporations, and government agencies, the above recommendations are the best practices we have gleaned from a year’s worth of 30 Day challenge roll-outs during the pandemic.
Offering a meditation challenge can help your team manage stress and improve overall job satisfaction, but employers need to carefully consider the steps required to make the challenge a success. With some planning and an evidence-based approach, team members can begin to understand the value of training the mind for well-being and organizations can build the foundation for a culture of sustained well-being.
Learn more about how the Healthy Minds Framework can support your workplace well-being with Healthy Minds @Work or join our intensive public MasterClass to learn the Healthy Minds Framework for Well-Being on your time.
