If you’re a small business owner maybe you think mindfulness doesn’t have a place in your business. Maybe you think it’s only for big corporations like Google, Toyota Motors or General Mills who have the dollars to invest in their workers. I think you should think again. Science and experience prove that implementing mindfulness principles can make a big difference in your business.
So let me start with a few questions. Are all your employees engaged and focused about their job? How about you? Small business owners often feel burned out. As entrepreneurs you’re so busy checking off the tasks to get things done, your ability to think about solutions from a ‘big-picture’ perspective lessens.
Building a strong, healthy work culture and giving people the skills to work with their minds, emotions and other people is one of the big benefits gained by organizations that incorporate mindfulness in their workplaces. Mindfulness is a opportunity for you as a business owner to help increase everyone’s level of happiness and well-being at the job. And that what will help increase the business’ bottom line.
If you’re wondering how making people feel better about their jobs will help make you more money, just think for a moment about the demands of most jobs today. We expect people to multitask, because well, everyone has to multitask and do more than one thing at a time on the job. Emails will keep coming, along with calls with customers, marketing for more prospects, meetings, reports, accounts payable, accounts receiveable and taxes and on and on. A few simple mindfulness techniques can help people feel less stress at the job and they’ll learn to increase their focus and accuracy on the volume of work they have to do.
When people feel overwhelmed in the job they often feel the opposite of mindfulness, they feel mindlessness. When your job feels like you’re putting out fires all day, going from one work mini-crisis to the next – that’s mindlessness at the job. Learning mindfulness won’t change the activities we have to accomplish during the workday. But it will change how we let those tasks influence us. It is those changes that create the impact on the bottom line.
The ability to complete tasks in less time with greater accuracy means you and your staff are more productive. Feeling less stress at the job equates to fewer sick days, aka ‘mental health’ days when your staff can’t face another day at the office. Trust and believe, mindfulness measures up to increased revenue, improved employee retention and better work environments and even helps develop better business leaders!
Have you thought about how mindfulness can help boost your business?
