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Mindfulness facilitates your ability to practice acceptance. Acceptance is one of the seven tenets of mindfulness. At Calmworks we draw an important distinction between acceptance of thinking about a challenge, and acceptance of the challenge itself. Accepting the thinking allows you to examine the challenge without it becoming a stressor. Examining the challenge in this way allows you to act with your fullest power. This is important because some things in business are unacceptable, as this amalgamated dispatch from our deep cover operatives explains... May was Mental Health Awareness month and employers around the country were busy shouting about all the wonderful wellbeing benefits they offered staff. From free counselling services to meditation apps, companies fell over themselves to outdo competitors by proving commitment to mental health. But does it all ring true? On interviewing a number of working professionals, a deeply concerning pattern of stress at work emerged. Have employers focused on the remedies without actually examining the cause? Sustained bullying – or what some would call coercive control in the workplace – led one individual to suffer extreme anxiety attacks and impacted their life well beyond the workplace, causing friction in relationships, and leading to multiple medical interventions and medication. In instances such as this, maintaining an ultimately hollow position that ‘help is at hand’ is not good enough. Where senior managers – or indeed anyone – are abusing power, action must be taken. Having worked with many human resource (HR) departments to implement successful mindfulness workshops, consultancies and other training for staff, it would be wrong to diminish the abundant benefits that some third-party support can bring. But using light-touch wellness programmes to tick boxes does not stamp out the cause. Employers that want to live up to their promises should be brave enough, not just to implement life changing mindfulness programmes, but to call out controlling behaviour – whether it’s micromanaging, excluding people from meetings/projects because of personal bias, or over-exaggerating minor issues and underrepresenting a colleague’s achievements to diminish their reputation and opportunities for progress – all of which cropped up in our research. We urge employers to spot the signs. The UK government’s definition of bullying and harassment cites: - spreading malicious rumours
- unfair treatment
- picking on or regularly undermining someone
- denying someone’s training or promotion opportunities
So, if you think this is happening to someone you know, act on it. And for those experiencing this in the workplace – you are not alone. More than one in 10 people suffer according to the CIPD's latest figures, and 15% of employees said they were bullied at some point between 2016 and 2019. So, take a look at your workplace and check in with your colleagues. Whether you’re a board member, a line manager or a trainee, we all have a responsibility to help stamp out this behaviour and to recognise the severe distress it can cause to a person’s wellbeing.
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