Mindfulness in organisations can be a valuable support for employees’ mental health and well-being, but we need to consider how it’s delivered.

At Oxford Mindfulness, we’re committed to expanding access to high-quality, research-based mindfulness, whether that’s for individuals or within communities and workplaces. As more organisations recognise the value of supporting the well-being of their employees, we’re seeing a growing appetite for mindfulness programmes tailored to the working world.

However, delivering mindfulness in organisational settings isn’t simply a matter of transferring traditional approaches into corporate spaces. It’s a different context, with its own needs, cultures, and realities.

Mindfulness in the workplace

Delivering mindfulness to people in workplace contexts involves unique dynamics beyond leading practices and embodying mindfulness. Alongside guiding individuals, you’re also navigating the culture, structure and expectations of a workplace.

Unlike general public programmes, workplace mindfulness requires adapting to:

• Organisational cultures, hierarchies, and relational dynamics
• Employees’ workloads, schedules and time pressures
• The goals and expectations of the employer who may be focused on well-being outcomes, team cohesion, performance or other objectives

It’s about meeting both employee needs and organisational goals, while building trust, engagement, and relevance. A mindfulness session in the middle of a busy working day has a very different energy to a public course, and the skills needed to hold that space are nuanced and evolving.

Workplace mindfulness trends

As Mindfulness: Teaching in the Workplace programme facilitators Leonie Schell and Susan Peacock acknowledge, the workplace landscape has experienced significant and unprecedented changes since 2020.

Marked by significant global uncertainty and escalating fears, employees are finding themselves increasingly distracted while organisations require strategic and flexible solutions to accommodate financial pressures – mindfulness teachers today face unique challenges that call for specialised skills beyond traditional teacher training.

At Oxford Mindfulness, our intention is to continue to evolve our mindfulness in the workplace offerings while supporting the teaching community to navigate these challenges through training, research and community.

We believe that with the right support, mindful approaches can be embedded into organisational cultures in a way that respects the people, the pressures, and the purpose of each setting.