Mindfulness through Meditation: A Potential Tool for Employers

Mindfulness in the workplace has been an on-going topic of interest here at CEC Associates.  We’ve produced many emails and articles on the subject with the goal of sharing information with employers and human resources professionals.  Now, we’ve discovered a new book, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Maria Konnikova, and a recent study, both of which explore mindfulness through meditation.  Konnikova, in an article for The New York Times, explains that “mindfulness is less about spirituality and more about concentration: the ability to quiet your mind, focus your attention, and dismiss any distractions that come your way.”  She uses Holmes, the quintessential “unitasker,” to illustrate how practiced mindfulness can help us in a quick-paced world:

Through modifying our practices of thought towards a more Holmes-like concentration, we can build up neural real estate that is better able to deal with the variegated demands of the endlessly multitasking, infinitely connected modern world.  And even if we’ve never attempted mindfulness in the past, we might be surprised at how quickly the benefits become noticeable.

The study was conducted in 2012 by faculty at the University of Washington.  The aim was to determine the effects of meditation training on the multitasking behavior of “knowledge workers,” presumably as opposed to workers who do repetitive labor or “mindless” work.  Those participants who received the 8-week training and subsequently engaged in a 20-minute frenzy of assigned clerical tasks reported:

·     fewer negative emotions at the end of the assignment;

·     that they could stay on task longer and switch between tasks less frequently; and

·     that they remembered what they did better than those participants who underwent the same task assignment without the meditation training.

The findings of the study and the new approach of Konnikova’s book both promote the benefits of mindfulness and suggest potentially useful ways meditation training can be used to achieve it in a work setting.  If any employers already train staff in mindfulness and/or meditation, please share your experience.  How do you think mindfulness would benefit you in your daily workload, if at all?  Do you think meditation training for employees would be the way to achieve that mindfulness, or just a waste of time?