When companies feel that their employees are stressed, they organize yoga and meditation classes. But does it address the REAL problem?
Is it not yet another bandaid applied on the poor human soul, which is already heavily “bandaided?”
People are stressed for many reasons, and here is one of them — they are not getting the time and mental space to do their job.
If ad hoc tasks, emails/messages, and pokes from their bosses keep disrupting their attention, a 1-hour task will easily 2-3 hours. So naturally, they are working long hours and rarely feel flow or mental calm.
But of course, this view seems too simplistic — in the real world, don’t we have to collaborate? Will work get done by sitting in a cave? No.
But how often do we need an instant response? What would happen if the person responded 45 min later? And for genuinely urgent things, could the managers just call the team member, or find other means to reach them?
At HabitStrong, we have data to show that a majority of people are fed up with non-stop interruptions and wasteful meetings.
I am not saying this is an easy problem to fix. But managers have to find an answer — yoga classes won’t fix this. We need to create interruption-free time for our teams — even 2 hours a day would be a great start.
Well-being can’t be improved by one more bandaid. Instead, solve the real problems.
– Rajan