As more and more workplaces gain a deeper understanding of mental health and well-being in the workplace (a fantastic step in the right direction), it is also important to start promoting mindfulness and making staff aware of things they can do to bring this into their working day.
Why is mindfulness in the workplace important?
At work is where we spend a lot of our waking day, whether that be in the workplace or at home and, often, we can get caught up in the day-to-day stresses that are happening around us. It doesn’t necessarily matter what the stress is or how big that stress seems to an outsider, stress is stress and we all react differently to it.
It’s important that managers recognise these symptoms and offer solutions or help to stop them from impacting their staff’s mental health.
One of the ways to help members of staff react differently to stressful situations and help them not to feel overwhelmed by what’s going on around them is by offering tips and the time to practice mindfulness in the workplace.
Obviously, if the day-to-day stresses go beyond your average working stresses, then mindfulness isn’t necessarily the right approach, and things should be done within the business to investigate what’s going on and put measures in place to ensure these don’t continue.
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is the ability or technique that we can learn to feel completely present at any one time. It helps us to not feel overwhelmed by everything that’s going on around us and focus on the present moment. Concentrating on too many things at once can often make someone feel panicked or anxious. Mindfulness can reduce or completely eliminate that feeling.
How can mindfulness help in the workplace?
Mindfulness can help us to stay focused on one thing at a time. This can be particularly helpful if you’re working on a big project, with multiple elements, all with different deadlines. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done, you should focus on one thing - the priority, and move on to the next steps afterwards.
Who should practice mindfulness?
There is no right or wrong answer to this question. Anyone and everyone can practice mindfulness. It’s important that managers and owners are aware of what it is and what resources or courses they can offer to staff to help them embrace it in the workplace. Why? It’ll not only help with productivity, but it will lead to happiness and a healthier mindset amongst staff, which is extremely important.
It demonstrates an element of care throughout the team. As a manager or leader, you’re emotionally aware of your team and actively encourage them to take care of themselves and their mind, which is all constitutive to a positive working environment.
How can I practice mindfulness?
There are a number of ways you can incorporate mindfulness into your life. One of those ways is to enrol on a course (both managers and staff) to be given the tools to react and or handle things in a healthy way. At The CPD Certification Service we host a number of mindfulness courses by different CPD providers that inform the attendee of various approaches that you can take, and how you can sustain this in your everyday life.
As a manager, it’s important to be aware of these approaches and also allow your staff the time in order to practice them regularly. Mindfulness isn’t something that you can practice once and then forget about, it’s something that needs to be repeated. If you’re interested in searching for mindfulness courses, go to the CPD Courses Catalogue and use the filter function to find what you’re looking for.
CPD accreditation for your courses and events
With 25 years' experience The CPD Certification Service is the largest and leading CPD accreditation organisation working across all industry sectors, helping to ensure that training courses and events are suitably reviewed against a recognised standard of learning. If you provide mindfulness in the workplace courses and are looking into the opportunity of having your courses CPD certified please contact our team to discuss in more detail.
