Introduction
Organizations are increasingly adopting the concept of mindfulness as a tool for enhancing their effectiveness and productivity. Businesses face various challenges, such as a high rate of employee turnover due to workplace stress and burnout. Equally, lack of work-life balance and conflicts among employees negatively impact organizations. These factors hurt employee engagement, job satisfaction, self-actualization, and development. Mindfulness practices within organizations help workers and management to focus on their duties and realize their full potential. While the interpretation of mindfulness practices in businesses differs at the organizational, group, and individual levels, it is a beneficial tool used by companies to deal with workplace demanding circumstances.
Interpretation of Mindfulness
Mindfulness practices are instrumental human resource developmental tools at the organizational level. According to Ihl et al. (2020), the application of mindfulness in organizations supports employees in dealing with various issues and meeting their personal needs. It is valuable means towards critical changes that are beneficial to organizational functioning. The primary goals of businesses are productivity and effectiveness enhancement as well as market position improvement. Therefore, employees and managers alike need to be focused on achieving the objectives. Human resource managers are increasingly integrating mindfulness as fundamental in developing tools to facilitate burnout prevention and increase employee engagement, among other benefits (Kelemen et al., 2020). They train workers on mindfulness to cultivate their emotional and cognitive resources. As a result, employees’ capability to deal with work environments’ dynamic conditions improves. Additionally, their work-related stress reduces, and cognitive flexibility and resilience increase (Kelemen et al., 2020). Therefore, organizations adopt mindfulness practices to strengthen their employees since they are a valuable resource supporting their goals.
At the group level within organizations, mindfulness practices enhance team efficiency by supporting personal relationships. Companies organize employees into teams to complete particular tasks. Ihl et al. (2020) indicate that each group member focuses on measurable benefits such as productivity. Additionally, mindfulness practices are an essential aspect of daily team functioning and interactions. These practices allow employees to reflect on activities and experience enhanced functioning of their groups. According to Ihl et al. (2020), the application of mindfulness as a developmental tool in small groups of workers guarantees the achievement of desired team outcomes. Mindfulness practices at the group level focus mainly on the social aspects beyond the individual ones.
They help team members have more robust collaborative behavior, reduced interpersonal conflict, respectful interactions, and improved social skills. Thus, mindfulness facilitates the establishment of sustainable positive relationships among group members.
Mindfulness is an instrumental self-actualization tool at the individual level within organizations. Ihl et al. (2020) note that mindfulness practices allow employees to realize their potential and fully develop their abilities and appreciate their lives. Therefore, mindfulness practices are viewed as person-centered at the individual level, and positive perception associated with them comes from spiritual practices beyond occupational context (Kelemen et al., 2020). They are considered as an integration of the private life realm in the organization environment, which enriches it with excellent individual self-actualizing and wellness. The practices blur work-life boundaries since they yield closely interwoven benefits in work and private life. Their effects on personal family situations have indirect positive impacts on work functioning. Employees get a more positive way of facing and resolving prevailing challenging circumstances, contributing to a holistic and emotionally fulfilling life (Ihl et al., 2020). Indeed, mindfulness practices help individuals achieve an optimistic perspective on life, pay more attention to positive situations, and enhance self-reflection to develop desirable cognitions and emotions in their life’s demanding circumstances.
Importance of mindfulness within organizations
Mindfulness improves employees’ job satisfaction and motivation since it facilitates more adaptive approaches to work stressors. Stresses in work environments are inevitable due to such factors as tight schedules and strained relationships among employees and between management and the staff. Nevertheless, mindful employees do not simply react and judge the occurrence of something challenging with their emotions (Craig, 2020). Instead, they consider the situation with a more adaptive attitude. They use a proactive approach to understand the stressors in their working environments, becoming more satisfied in their job. Mindfulness also increases job satisfaction by increasing self-determined behavior and promoting individuals’ awareness of their fundamental values and needs (Craig, 2020). It facilitates consciousness of the present moment’s experiences and minimizes habitual and automatic functioning.
Mindfulness is an instrumental tool that helps employees combat and manage stress. As noted earlier, stress is common in workplaces and is potentially detrimental to individual, team, and organizational functioning. Craig (2020) indicates that approximately 26 % of employees report having been stressed at their work. Additionally, workplaces stress adversely affects the effectiveness and productivity of organizations. The stress may cost businesses a significant amount of money if they do not adopt appropriate measures to deal with it. However, Craig (2020) notes that mindfulness training is a recognizable beneficial tool for employees’ wellness and health since it builds resilience and lowers workforce stress. Therefore, organizations need to train their staff on operational mindfulness practices to ensure their effectiveness.
Mindfulness training within organizations can facilitate leadership development, enhancing the growth of business potential. Notably, organizational leadership influences operations and the achievement of goals and objectives. Craig (2020) indicates that leadership development is a significant concern in most businesses due to a lack of self-awareness, which derails high potential leaders. Improving awareness of self and others within organizations is a critical element of mindfulness (Kelemen et al., 2020). Therefore, training employees on mindfulness practices is means for high potential workers and is an effective process in that companies can nurture improved and new leadership.
Mindfulness within organizations enhances employees’ engagement and decreases burnout. When employees are present and not judging their capability, open to listening and learning from others, and adopt self-acceptance, they become passionate about their jobs and committed to their organizations. According to Craig (2020), employees’ engagement increases their satisfaction and organizational citizenship behaviors and lowers the intention to quit the job. Equally, mindfulness minimizes turnover rate and positively impacts business performance (Kelemen et al., 2020). Thus, companies associated with high stress and burnout jobs need to implement mindfulness programs to promote employee engagement and commitment.
Mindfulness practices can also help employees to cope with changes implemented within their organizations. Change is increasingly becoming a predominant aspect in organizations in the contemporary dynamic business environment as every firm tries to achieve competitiveness in the market. However, employees’ resistance derails efforts for workplace changes (Craig, 2020). Mindfulness reduces stresses associated with a potential loss of job control due to organizational transformation and promotes objectivity, allowing workers to cope with workplace changes.
Conclusion and Recommendations
While mindfulness is a helpful human resource developmental tool at the organizational level, it enhances team efficiency by supporting personal relationships and facilitating self-actualization at the group and individual levels. Mindfulness practices within organizations improve employees’ job satisfaction and motivation and help them combat and manage stress. Additionally, the practices facilitate leadership development, enhance employees’ engagement, decrease burnout, and help workers cope with changes implemented within their organizations. Therefore, organizations, regardless of their size, should develop and implement mindfulness programs. They should also evaluate and focus on only mindfulness practices that work best for their workforce to guarantee positive outcomes.
References
Craig, H. (2020). Mindfulness at work: Using mindful leadership in the workplace. PositivePsychology.com. Web.
Ihl, A., Strunk, K., & Fiedler, M. (2020). Interpretations of mindfulness practices in organizations: A multi-level analysis of interpretations on an organizational, group, and individual level. Organization, 00(0), 1-34. Web.
Kelemen, P., Born, E., & Ondráček, T. (2020). Theorizing on the connection between organizational and individual mindfulness. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, 33(1), 1813-1829. Web.