Welcome to Mindful, a dynamic and innovative Meditation and Mindfulness program for the workplace.
Wellbeing
Supporting others to feel empowered when it comes to their wellbeing has always been at the forefront of our founder’s professional career in leadership. Through Meredith’s experience as a primary school educator of thirteen years and former assistant principal, she came to develop a deeper understanding of the underpinnings of wellbeing and how mindfulness practices can powerfully impact the individual and, most importantly, the culture of a wider community.
Equipped with a warm personality and a collaborative approach, Meredith is passionate about utilising her formal training and extensive expertise to create individualised programs that transform workplace wellbeing.
Research
Our Mindful workplace and meditation program is backed by science and evidence-based research. In 2015, the Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group published the Mindful Nation UK report - a year-long study and inquiry into the scientific impacts of mindfulness training in the workplace. This report found the following evidence presented for staff members who engaged in meditation and mindfulness training.
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Creativity is not only the invention of new ideas, products and services; it is crucial for individual performance, problem-solving and the development of efficient management techniques.
How companies think creatively is one of the most significant areas of inquiry for business. Several companies that implement mindfulness programmes for creativity and innovation include Apple, Google, Target, and Lululemon.
Mindfulness training has the capability to:
Develop problem-solving skills, a key characteristic of creativity.
Improve an individual's focus and the ability to filter out external distractions during creative tasks.
Increase idea generation, divergent thinking and open-mindedness.
Reduce cognitive rigidity and increase the capacity to respond flexibly and adaptively to a particular problem.
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Workplace organisations are increasingly concerned with the resilience and wellbeing of employees due to the accrued financial implications of absenteeism, presenteeism and the staff turnover associated with mental health-related problems and stress. Research has shown that staff members who engaged in mindfulness and meditation training:
Reported less emotional exhaustion, better work-life balance and job performance ratings.
A greater ability to be self-aware and resilient.
Recognised the signs of stress and responded with increasing effectiveness.
Developed the capacity to discern between activities that nurture or deplete internal resources.
Gained invaluable strategies for reducing stress, anger, and rumination and increased the qualities of positive outlook, empathy, cohesion, self-compassion and overall quality of life.
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Staff cohesion and how team members feel about their co-workers and managers can impact how effectively a team accomplishes tasks. Positive relationships help create productive teams and a culture whereby staff can feel valued, empowered, and successful. Mindfulness has the capability to equip individuals with:
The skills to create improved relationships at work improve employees’ resilience in the face of challenges.
The ability to act and respond with greater compassion toward others in addition to enjoying more satisfying personal relationships.
Research has shown that happy, engaged, knowledgeable workers tend to collaborate, learn better and instigate creative thinking, thus driving productivity.
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Studies have concluded that:
Workplace mindfulness training positively improves job and task performance and increases a sense of citizenship.
Happy and engaged workers tend to be more productive, collaborative, and creative. They learn with greater efficiency, thus driving productivity.
A recent two-year research project by Google found that particular mindfulness skills, including mindful listening and equality of turn-taking were among the crucial drivers of collective intelligence and team performance.
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In 2012, a study was conducted involving 96 supervisors and their subordinates. The research focused on the impact of leaders’ receiving training in mindfulness and how this training impacted employee wellbeing.
The report concluded that employee exhaustion decreased and employee work-life balance increased as a result of supervisor mindfulness training. Not to mention that leaders reported being able to approach challenging circumstances and professional communication with greater capabilities.
Employee performance, staff engagement and job satisfaction were also positively related to supervisor mindfulness.
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A 2015 review by a researcher named Good, suggests that mindfulness training could improve our ‘rationality’ by developing our attentional capacity. Good found that mindfulness develops our ability to really see what is in front of us without being distracted by past experiences or long-held beliefs.
Another academic literature review suggests that mindfulness training could have a number of positive effects on decision-making, including improving the quality of information considered in decisions, recognising ethical challenges, reducing our tendency to seek and trust patterns and reducing confirmation bias (our tendency to look for evidence to support what we already believe).
Mindful Program Outline
Program Structure:
Our program is a six-week immersive training, 60 minutes per week, fortnightly or weekly. The six week structure of our program is chosen and based upon the research of Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn and his development of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program. A program that researched the effects of meditation on stress management and decreasing anxiety, depression, immune disorders, hypertension and diabetes. Through his research, Kabat established that an extensive immersion, when learning new mindfulness skills enabled the best results for clients.
Program Content:
Mindful provides the space for an organisation and its staff to develop skills in two areas:
Meditation- developing formal meditation skills and techniques that can be used in the workplace or at home.
Mindfulness- is bringing our full awareness to the task or activity at hand. Our mindfulness electives allow employees to develop skills for positive professional relationships, communication, resilience, improved sleep or establishing healthy boundaries.
Meditation Skill Development: A workplace can choose to focus on some of the following areas:
Key Focus 1: Reduction- Meditation for stress and anxiety reduction
Key Focus 2: Relaxation- Meditation for calm and body relaxation
Key Focus 3: Breath- Meditation to develop breathing techniques
Key Focus 4: Mindset- Meditation for focus and a positive mindset
Key Focus 5: Visualisation- Utilising visualisation for relaxation and wellbeing
Key Focus 6: Compassion- Meditation for finding greater compassion for oneself and others.
Mindfulness Skill Development: Our Mindful program can also encompass mindfulness development. Some of our mindfulness electives include:
Key Focus 7: Empowered Resilience
Key Focus 8: Professional and Positive Communication with Peers and Customers
Key Focus 9: Establishing Healthy Boundaries
Key Focus 10: Improved Sleep & Rest
Key Focus 11: Team Building and Developing Interpersonal Relationships
Key Focus 12: Empathy and Emotional Intelligence
Key Focus 13: Mindful Leadership
A workplace is most welcome to choose six foci from the meditation and mindfulness electives above or speak to us about another area that might best support your staff. We’re always happy to work with you. Our programs can be differentiated to support employees, leaders, managers or proprietors. Extended programs, including 8-week immersions, are also available.
Where:
For an in person workshop, we service Lennox Head to Brisbane. Mindful program can be conducted at our workshop space in Lennox Head; a catering quote can be provided upon request.
We can conduct the program within your workplace; travel costs may be applied. Alternatively, this program can be delivered live online.
What to Expect.
Wellbeing Arc Collective provides a comprehensive service to each organisation. From start to finish, we value working collaboratively while cultivating practical meditation and mindfulness skills within the workplace.
We plan for success. Through the expression of interest form below, we gather a general overview of your workplace and organisation. From here, our founder will call you to introduce herself and gather any other key information required before preparing a proposal for you.
We assess to ensure meaningful learning. We may come to explore the assessment phase through a complimentary in-person consultation. We will conduct a formal assessment to deepen our understanding of your organisation's goals. We can also utilise Summative assessments at established milestones throughout the program. Any data collected through assessments is collated and summarised for the organisation, tracking growth, success and areas of development.
We create individualised programs. From the information collated through the initial face-to-face meeting and formative assessment, an individualised program is formulated for the workplace organisation. Specific goals will create a foundation for the program in addition to the electives of your choosing.
Let’s work together.
Interested in working together? Fill out some info and we will be in touch shortly! We can't wait to hear from you!