Preliminary communication
The effect of mindfulness training on employees in a dynamic organizational setting
Ingunn Myrtveit
; BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway
Vedrana Jez
; BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway
Viggo Johansen
Abstract
The access to information and multiple sources of communication has changed the way we work, and relate to our work day. The boundaries between work and home often disappear, increasing potentially employees’ stress level, diminish-ing cognitive capabilities, and splitting attention between numerous tasks. The consequences of multitasking have been widely studied, as well as individual differences. Based on other studies, mindfulness based stress reduction (MSBR) method appears to have a positive effect e.g. on attention, working memory, stress and empathy. Thus, this experiment introduces an intervention in the form of mindfulness training, which lasted for 12 weeks for all 110 employees, who
are located in 13 countries world wide. In addition, employees attended a seminar per week during 10 weeks. These seminars were mainly based on positive psychology. In order to collect data three surveys were sent out (before the intervention, 12 weeks after the first seminar and 6 months later). Two specific measurements were used, which are Mind-fulness Awareness Scale (MASS) and Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). Findings showed a significant increase in MAAS, and diminishing values in PSS, meaning that treatment, in the form of MBSR had an affect on the perceived stress in the firm.
Keywords
mindfulness training; mindfulness based stress reduction (MSBR); perceived stress
Hrčak ID:
132598
URI
Publication date:
1.11.2014.
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