Meditation at Work

Nine-to-five jobs are no longer the norm. Employees send and receive work-related texts and emails around the clock, as work life spills over into home life. The two aren’t as separate as they used to be.

Since employees spend more hours working, proactive employers give a high priority to employees’ well-being to help prevent job burnout. Companies who want to remain competitive and attract talent are putting practices in place that help create happy, healthy employees.

Take Google, for example. They offer many perks to keep employees happy and healthy: free gourmet cafeterias, nap pods, onsite doctors for free employee checkups—and since 2007, meditation programs. Google management realizes that meditation not only reduces employee stress, but it also improves the company’s bottom line.

This makes perfect sense when you consider the costs of stress in the workplace. The World Health Organization estimates that stress costs American businesses up to $300 billion a year in job turnover costs, healthcare expenditures, and absenteeism.

Companies are wise to take measures to reduce stress. One practice that’s simple to put into place is the ancient practice of meditation. The benefits of meditation can be profound: increased awareness and focus, reduced stress, and enhanced well-being.

Even the scientific journals are weighing in, publishing studies that show meditation in the workplace makes employees more resilient in the face of challenges—and decreases reactivity to stress and the risk of burnout.

If you search online for companies that provide employee meditation programs, you’ll find companies such as Google, Target, General Mills, Intel, and Etsy. These programs show a shift in corporate cultures to more employee-friendly models. For instance, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh places a high value on employee happiness, a model that’s helped his company achieve great success.

Hsieh and other CEO’s realize that a happy, healthy employee is a productive employee. That’s why meditation in the workplace is catching on. Not only is the practice a proven path to happiness and well-being, it’s accessible to anyone, it can be done most anywhere, and best of all, it’s free!