How to introduce a team morning meditation at work ?

Hello friends, I hope you are all happy and well 😊

Last week, I brought some information on how meditation can help you become a better leader. Today, I’d like to share with you how you can introduce this practice in your workplace, so your entire team can benefit from it too !

Although meditation at work might seem like an unconventional practice, it's been implemented on a significant level by some of the world’s most innovative companies.

Google, Nike, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Roche, Accenture… Like them or not, these are some of the most widely known and successful companies of our times. What do they all have in common ? They have all started introducing meditation at work.

Is this one of the reasons they are so successful and their employees seem to demonstrate higher levels of satisfaction at work ? It could be.

The trend of mindfulness and meditation has grown rapidly since Jon Kabat Zinn brought mindfulness to the United States in 1979, and today, large corporations and institutions have developed expansive company-wide mindfulness programs.

Mindfulness companies have seen a remarkable rise in recent years due to the growing recognition of mindfulness as a tool for improving mental, physical and emotional well-being. In today's ever-evolving world, people are struggling to cope with the demands of daily life, leading to increased levels of stress and burnout. Not to mention the decresasing size of the human attention span.

Mindfulness has been shown to foster stronger workplace cultures and drive mental wellbeing. Research showed that mindfulness activities in the workplace led to a an increase in employee performance and an increase in employee communication skills.

Given these facts, why not considering a team morning meditation practice in your workplace ?

As a team leader, this is something of great value you could offer to your team.

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to do it!

1. Offer an informative session

Perhaps you are already familiarized with meditation and all the goodness it can bring to both individuals and teams. But there are probably elements in your team that are unaware of what it is and what it does. So take the time to introduce everyone to this amazing practice, the scientific evidence about its benefits and explain how it can be of great help for the team’s well-being and success, before you invite them to join in the practice.

2. Decide on a frequency, time and duration

This will greatly depend on your work schedule, availability and needs. You could implement a 10-15 minute morning meditation each day, ideally during the worktime – people will probably show resistance if they have to take on their personal and precious time off work to join in the meditation. So if you can, make it a collective work task everyone is involved in. You’ll see that taking just 10-15 minutes every day will greatly improve the levels of attention, productivity and the sense of service of all team members. And as a result the time spent meditating will compensate in quality and quantity of produced work.

3. Decide if it will be mandatory or optional

In case you decide to do it outside of working hours, let’s say 15 minutes before the usual starting worktime, it would be wise to leave it optional for people to join. And in that case, you could arrange some kind of compensation (free coffee, 10 % discount on meals, 4h off work offered every month... just be creative and offer what’s viable in your company!) so that people are motivated to join. Don’t forget, this small investment can bring your team and your company great results in the long-run.

4. Choose a quiet and spacious place at the office to do it

It is important that you choose carefully the meditation room in which your team will be meeting for the practice. Ideally it will be a room that is solely dedicated to the meditation practice during the time you’ll be meditating. No background noises, no other people who aren’t meditating. Just the meditation team, in a calm, peaceful place, away from distractions and disturbances.

5. Guide it yourself or use one of our guided meditations available on youtube

Perhaps you are already familiarized with meditation and you could guide yourself the sessions – this would create more intimacy and trust among the group, as well as make people more willing to open themselves to you outside of the meditation. But only do this, if you have a well-established meditation practice. Otherwise, people will sense your lack of competence and you’ll put yourself in a difficult situation. Our meditation sessions are freely available on youtube, and all of them are suitable for the workplace. Feel free to use them.

6. Always leave a few moments after meditation for comments or insights

Try not to rush directly into work right after the meditation ends. Offer some space for people to share a word or two if they wish, about anything that might surface during the meditation. One of the purposes of meditating together is to allow people to become closer to each other. Making space for ideas, thoughts and feelings to be shared is important.

7. Wish everyone a happy, productive day, and stay available

A good leader is present and available for his/her team. Sure, you need to establish clear boundaries and master your own time, but let people know that they can count on you. The success of a team, greatly depends on its ability to cooperate, and as a leader, you are well positioned to inspire positive action and show the example !

In case you decide to try meditation at work with your team, let us know what the results are in the short, medium and long-term.

There’s a great chance that empathy, productivity, effectiveness and satisfaction levels improve massively with this experience. And is there any team leader who doesn’t want that?

So we truly wish you find the time, space and willingness to bring team meditation to your workplace ! Remember, EVERYONE will benefit from it :)

Wishing you a great week and sending you much love,

Tati