Category: Business life

Mindfulness is the state of being present in the moment, without judging or overthinking. It allows one to pause amid the constant inflow of stimuli and consciously decide how to act, rather than react reflexively with ingrained behavior patterns. Mindfulness, therefore, is perfectly suited to counterbalance the digital-age challenges of information overload and constant distraction.

Especially in times of uncertainty, mindfulness is a key skill for managers and team leaders, as it is the only way to manage stress reactions and illogical behaviours while under stress. The digital transformation and the pandemic have both challenged mental wellbeing. The fear of the unknown is more intense than ever and the need to reinvent ourselves and to re-establish our routines can be overwhelming. This new reality is taking over rapidly and managers are already looking for new ways to keep their teams motivated and effective- including Virtual Reality mindfulness.

According to a 2018 article published by Boston Consulting Group: “Mindfulness programs help leaders and employees reflect effectively, focus sharply on the task at hand, master peak levels of stress, and recharge quickly. On an organizational level, mindfulness reduces sick days, increases trust in leadership, and boosts employee engagement. What’s more, mindfulness helps to unlock the full potential of digital and agile transformations. New processes and structures are just the starting points for these transformations.” In other words, corporations adopt wellness and mindfulness initiatives as the optimal way to secure clarity in decision making, calmness in communications and employee satisfaction.

According to Daniel Goleman, there are 3 key benefits to team performance; not only are creativity and better decision making boosted but also a new approach to employee personal development is introduced.

In their recent book, Altered Traits, Daniel Goleman, a Harvard psychologist, and Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, provide a scientific view of personal mindfulness benefits. They synthesize three proven benefits of mindfulness that, in combination, allow people to act more effectively in unpredictable environments:

Staying Calm and Open-Minded. Mindfulness practices, such as breathing meditation, are associated with decreased gray-matter density in the amygdala, the region of the brain that initiates a response to stress. This reduces the inclination to interpret an uncertain environment as a threat and thus react defensively. In this way, mindfulness improves mental agility, allowing attitudes to shift from “But we have always done it like that” to “Let’s see what happens if we try a new approach.”

Cognitive Ability. Mindfulness improves short-term memory and the ability to perform complex cognitive tasks. It also frees people to think outside the box, which helps them cut through complexity. In the context of workplace performance, proven results include a higher quality of strategic decision making and more effective collaboration.

Focus and Clarity of Thinking. As Nobel laureate Herbert A. Simon observed, “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” This insight, first articulated in 1971, is more accurate today than ever before. Maintaining a strong focus in this time of digital information overload is essential. The regular practice of mindfulness routines can reduce mental wandering and distraction. Mindfulness strengthens the awareness of both one’s activities in the present moment and one’s mental processes and behaviors (known as meta-awareness).

Download our free e-book on corporate mindfulness and allow your team to be more.

Among the lessons learnt during the pandemic is that working from home is not as relaxing and flexible as we used to believe. The strive for boundaries, heightened stress levels and the constant threat of burnout out has triggered a new conversation on remote corporate wellbeing. According to a recent Harvard Business Review’s article “Help Your Team Beat WFH Burnout” work from home and work burnout are two situations here to stay.
We hopefully move towards the end of the pandemic crisis, yet, many companies are adjusting and preferring the work from home (WFH) policy. The new reality we live in proves that WFH takes a toll on employees such as women, people of color and, those with caregiving responsibilities. Indeed, burnout defined as “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed” is at an all-time high. Research has shown that 9.8 million working mothers in the U.S are suffering from burnout. That may come as a shock but at least 28% of working mothers are more likely to experience burnout comparing to working fathers.

These numbers are alarming and they call for immediate action. Pandemic fatigue can result not only in low productivity, anxiety, and stress for workers, but it is also a contributing factor in the Covid-fueled exodus of women from the workforce. Gender equality is not balanced when women leave the workforce and that does not only affect companies but their families that depend on them too. Not only working mothers are affected by work burnout and discrimination, but also people of color. For example, Black and Latino workers are more worried than white workers about their employment.
As the remote work trend is here to stay, there are several things that leaders can do to relieve stress from their employees and nurture a safe, inclusive and productive team spirit. They should create an inclusive remote culture that will benefit the entire organization and protect employees from burnout during and after the pandemic.
The use of immersive technology,  like Solas VR meditations, provide a very close to actually proximity result. Sharing common experiences while allowing the mind to let go of unproductive stress refreshes equally the individual and the team. This experience nurtures the employer-employee relationship, deepens the sense of community, boosts productivity, and enhances mental wellbeing.

As health is the new wealth and inner peace is the new success, new methods light the way towards really successful teams, in the pandemic era and beyond.

Several years ago, managers had a revelation: they understood that employees are not disposable because companies benefit in multiple ways from loyal team members. The persona of the angry manager firing people “just because” is outdated and forgotten. Employee turnover is a KPI that calls for initiatives and actions, as it impacts the financial performance and most of all, the essence of the company itself. 

Why employees quit?

Employees leave their jobs when they believe that the balance between what they offer and what they get is flawed. As a reaction to injustice, they put themselves in the risk of unemployment, as the last resort for inner peace. Quitting a job is the manifestation of bafflement and chagrin, and it usually reflects false promises, either from the side of the employer or for the employees themselves. 

• When managers hire a candidate, they believe that this new person will fit the corporate role in an effective and mutually satisfying manner.
• When the candidate accepts the job offer, in turn, they hope for a balanced work environment that fulfils their personal needs and objectives.

So, quitting or letting go comes when either the employer or the employee is not happy with this “contract”. Both parties will look for replacements, bearing the burden of a job-hopping cv or a high employee turnover. Nobody wins here; in fact, even more people lose, as a flawed corporate culture or business environment impacts the whole of the staff and, ultimately the customers via poor service.

How does this hurt the core of the business?

First of all, there is a significant cost every time an employee quits, as new resources need to be invested in recruitment and training. While the new member goes through the learning curve, performance is lower than expected, and managers need to keep a close eye to the new one. All these work hours and brainpower directly impact the financial performance of the company. 

But, there is also a huge opportunity cost here, that possibly matters even more: in the new business field, it’s the strong brands that survive. Having people that internalize the brand values and become the face of the brand themselves is a priceless asset that can not be replicated by rivals. But, turning employees to ambassadors takes time, mutual trust and satisfaction. When the employee turnover is high, none of these can be present.

What can we do to reduce employee turnover?

We need to understand what motivates employees and what makes them loyal. The theory has proposed, for decades now, to address the employees as people who have dreams and aspirations for growth and self-actualization, not as truants. With this premise in mind, managers have to dig deeper in order to comprehend what makes a person content. Monetary rewards are far less impactful than psychological ones, especially for the Millennials and younger generations. This doesn’t suggest to lower compensations, of course, but to invest more in theses other aspects of the corporate life that will reflect sincere appreciation.

Work-life balance is a key element in job satisfaction today. Exhausting workdays, emails during the weekend, lack of respect for personal space and time are amongst the reasons for quitting one’s job, today. Burnout syndrome rates are the tip of the iceberg, uncovering this harsh truth: for many years managers have failed their roles as coaches for growth and they have led their teams to exhaustion- physical, or psychological. To revert this, new initiatives are called for, sooner rather than later:

• Companies need to show that they profoundly understand their people’s needs and aspirations and to help them succeed. 
• Empathetic leadership is the new management style that can cope with the multiple pressures inwards and outwards the company.
• An extra focus on corporate wellbeing is called for, in order to bring employees closer to their inner peace and turn the corporate environment into a mindfulness facilitator. 

There is this saying that happy employees make happy customers. If we take a step back to see the big picture, though, we will realise that is far more than that: treating each other with kindness and understanding at work, creates an eco-system of respect and self-respect that benefits the society at large. After all, a minor change inside a meeting room can eventually change the world outside of it. 

Business focus has shifted several times, and today we are living in the Relationship era: maintaining strong relationships among the brand and its stakeholders has become the main source of competitive advantage. Our business vocabulary corroborates this shift, with new terms like employer branding, brand love, brand trust etc becoming the new “keywords” for the business plans and zoom meetings.

What we have to do now, as managers and team leaders, is to align our approach towards our people to this new framework, in order to become the managers that we would love to work for.

In other words, the times of transactional leadership are over. We have plenty of research to support the importance of keeping our people satisfied and content and a new, more empathetic leadership style is called for. Especially as Millenials have taken over, work-life balance and profound job satisfaction have outdone monetary rewards, in the “what keeps me productive” list. Motivation replaced fear; empathy replaced strict rules; retention replaced turnover.

What makes a good employer today?

The ability of the managers to address what really matters to the employees and to create a friendly, rewarding work environment. The more empowered and cared for team members feel, the more productive and devoted to their job role they become. Satisfied employees pay more attention to detail, become better service providers and contribute to the positive word of mouth, according to academic findings. 

In this context, taking action to boost the staff’s mental well-being becomes self-explanatory: being individually balanced and calm is the cornerstone of team balanced performance. In fact, this is so important, that employers might need to address this issue before it emerges, and to act proactively: encourage employees to engage in mindful practices before they feel emotionally challenged.

When we started working on the Solas VR meditation app, Covid-19 didn’t exist, whatsoever. But, even then, we knew how important the implications of corporate mindfulness were. By the time we launched the app, things had changed and remote work made joint team activities even more urgent: teams need to introduce new rituals that would enforce the sense of community among the team member, that ceased sharing common working space. Sharing a VR mindful experience is among the few activities that:

• nurture the employer-employee relationship,
• deepen the sense of community
• boost productivity
• and enhance mental wellbeing, at once.