a survey commissioned by Beeja Meditation, has revealed a shocking insight into the mental health of those at the top of Britain’s financial sector. The survey comes at a time when employee burnout and workplace mental health is in the spotlight more than ever before. With a recent Financial Times investigation revealing that “depression or anxiety account for 44 per cent of all work related ill-health cases in Britain”.
The survey revealed that 60% of finance executives believed a stigma over speaking about mental health in the workplace existed, an issue considered by many to have seen great progress over the past number of years. However, the survey not only highlighted a belief that a stigma still exists but that our very own business leaders are aware of these mental health issues within their workforces and are also themselves suffering from them.
Yet at the same time, 34% of business leaders either did not have or did not know of wellbeing policies at their workplace, an alarming revelation given the admission of prevalent mental health issues and stigma around talking about them depicted in this survey. More shocking still are the means by which burnt-out and stressed employees are dealing with their stress, with 64% using alcohol and 45% smoking, despite heightened awareness over the harmful nature of both habits.
Will believes that meditation has the power to drastically improve workplace wellbeing and has seen first-hand the benefits of introducing meditation practices, having spent a career working in some of the most stress-susceptible companies in the world, including HSBC,Goldman Sachs, Google DeepMind, Universal, Sony, Apple and Spotify.
With the finance sector clearly particularly susceptible to workplace stress, meditation could be the way forward and respondents to this survey certainly agreed, with 71% of tech leaders saying that they would likely introduce meditation to their wellbeing programs.
Meditation has long been thought of as a method of ‘blissing out’ but it is now proving its worth as a means of boosting both the happiness, health and productivity of workforces.
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