Council Post: Industry-Specific Ways To Support A Stressed Out Workforce

Hedge fund director turned meditation and wellness CEO of Chill Anywhere, the first live stream meditation platform built for the workplace

In this economic climate, being fully employed is both a blessing and likely a source of stress. A study from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and Harvard Medical School revealed that 55% of people said they were more stressed in May than in January.

When it comes to how that translates to the workforce, CEOs across the globe are faced with the reality of an employee mental health crisis. Harvard Business Review released tips on how CEOs and business leaders can support employee mental health, citing a study from Qualtrics and SAP that revealed nearly 40% of respondents said their company had not yet asked them how they’re doing since the pandemic began. No surprise, this group was more likely to report declining mental health.

Under the stress of 2020, the “new normal” of corporate culture now underlines the need for mental well-being support for an always-on business culture. From enterprises to startups, wellness, community and camaraderie have become critical characteristics of a healthy workplace, whether you are virtual or back in the office. Each industry is approaching this crisis differently, and for many, that includes new ways to incorporate meditation into the workday or workweek.

In our work with hundreds of businesses with global outposts, we are seeing meditation being used for much more than stress management.

Law firms are meditating their way to continuing education credits.

In Chicago, a city with no shortage of law firms, meditation is spreading rapidly within the law community. My team has worked with at least a dozen law firms and found that, in addition to the obvious need for stress management, mindfulness and meditation are increasingly becoming a popular addition to lawyers’ requirements for continuing education. While every state is different, in Illinois, lawyers require 30 hours of continuing education every two years, including six hours of training in topics such as professionalism, diversity, mental illness and addiction. Along with aiding in mental illness education requirements, the National Law Journal reported that meditation is also helping to build a sense of community among practicing lawyers in an often isolating industry.

The health care industry is using meditation to manage first responders’ mental health.

Meditation has long been touted by the health care industry as a preventative and beneficial practice. In 2020, hospitals are seeing an urgent need to provide front-line workers with more stress management support. My team has been approached by different organizations in the health care industry to help their staff manage “caregiver’s guilt” from not being able to do as much as they feel is needed under these unprecedented circumstances. This means providing on-demand stress management and 24/7 access to mindfulness tools. It can also be challenging for nurses, doctors and other practitioners to step away to join a live meditation session, as it means they need to leave a patient’s bedside, so mental health support must be easy to digest and customizable.

The academic world is using meditation to strengthen community for students and faculty.

The academic world is in the spotlight as we approach the school year. Educators from preschools and elementary schools to high schools and universities are forced to transform how they teach and support their students. University wellness centers have a long history with wellness and mental health support. A survey by Active Minds found that 80% of college students say that Covid-19 has negatively affected their mental health, with a one in five saying their mental health has “significantly worsened.”

Under the pandemic, The School of the Art Institute (SAIC) in Chicago took wellness practices such as group meditation and transitioned it to our virtual platform so that the university could keep these sessions as part of its curriculum. These sessions were more largely attended in the spring since going virtual. Faculty who were not previously practicing group meditation joined these virtual practices as well. My team is continuing to work with SAIC faculty to develop custom meditations that address their special stressors like final exams, summer curriculum and now going back to school (or not).

Meditation is helping substance abuse professionals address increased addiction reports.

American cities such as Ashville, North Carolina and Bakersfield, California are starting to report Covid-19’s effect on mental health issues, such as substance abuse. Addiction and substance abuse experts across the globe have long leveraged mediation as a form of therapy; it is even mentioned in step 11 of Alcohol Anonymous’s 12 steps. Meditation gives recovering addicts an action-based routine that they can access whenever they need additional support. Meditation is also being used to bring relief from chronic pain.

Global companies are using mindfulness to create symmetry among fractured workforces.

With the explosion of mindfulness and meditation in popular culture, we are seeing global enterprises use virtual meditation platforms to create moments of global community and support during this unprecedented year. Published in January, before the pandemic hit, Cigna’s annual study revealed that American workers were already feeling more isolated. Based on a survey of 10,000 adults, three out of five adults report that “they sometimes or always feel lonely,” which is up 7% from a year ago. And without a feeling of social connection at work, people are less likely to be motivated and productive within their organization.

Each industry is leveraging mindfulness practices, such as group workplace meditation, differently to support their communities. We can learn a lot about the need to customize these mental health support programs to specifically address the challenges faced by different businesses and industries, and the employees and workers that keep them going.

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