Article originally appeared on Bloomberg Law.
What’s the difference between mindfulness and resilience? It’s sort of like the difference between Paris and France.
Mindfulness, or being aware of your thoughts without judgment, is an aspect of resilience, according to Boston-based platform meQuilibrium. Resilience is a “broad set of skills,” including mindfulness. While mindfulness, or self-awareness, can reduce stress and somatic symptoms and improve sleep, resilience “equips employees to mitigate the experience of stress and positively adapt to change” and be better at problem-solving, the company says.
Resilient employees are 31 percent more engaged, have 60 percent less burnout, and are 30 percent more likely to recommend their employer as a great place to work, says meQuilibrium. Those stats come from the company’s validation studies.
“Every company we talk to is going through some sort of mass structural transformation,” Pam Boiros, the company’s chief marketing officer, said. “Companies that want to survive will need their employees to be resilient.”
Today’s new normal of constant change puts tremendous stress on employees, but resilience training helps to stop the cycle of “anxiety, anger, and aggressiveness,” Boiros said.
The company’s training begins with an online assessment that provides the individual employee with a “meQ” personality resilience score of 0 to 100, based on factors such as emotion control, focus, and mindfulness. “We look at the whole person, physical and emotional and create a “personalized learning journey to strengthen resilience,” she said.
Especially as the workplace becomes more diverse, we all need more empathy. “You have to have empathy to see things from other guy or gal’s point of view,” she said. And better communication skills (“What I think I hear you saying is …”) “makes everyone much more engaged and able to handle change,” she said. More on resilience at meQuilibrium’s “Activating Your Talent With Resilience.”
Read the full article here
