Mindfulness has become an essential part of many discussions in the business world. The need to engage in mindfulness has grown exponentially, especially with the rise of remote working. The past year has been a stressful one for everyone, with COVID-19 causing all sorts of havoc in people's lives. The thought of losing their jobs and having to take care of their family and home can all lead to them becoming overwhelmed.

As the team leader of a remote team, you want to make sure that they can free themselves of those burdens. One of the most popular ways for people to let go of their stress and clear their minds is by using meditation exercises. Meditation has become increasingly popular among the workforce in recent years. It has shown signs of improving the employee's overall mental state, allowing them to remain on top of their game. Group meditation is popular among organizations that wish to advance the well-being of their employees and improve team bonding.

Of course, meditation is not popular with everyone. Some people may be skeptical of its effects and consider a bunch of nonsense instead. That means some of your remote employees may hesitate to take part in meditation and instead tough it out, letting their stress, anxiety, and depression build up over time. Fortunately, there are ways for you to convince them to take part in your group meditation.

Here are some ways you can get your employees interested in group meditation.

Introducing the idea

Anything that is capable of assisting the team with thinking more clearly and deliberately is something that every business leader should consider. The list of benefits that meditation provides won’t just impact their performance at work but their home lifestyle as well. The idea of feeling overwhelmed is something that no one wants to experience. Employees provide their best work when they come from a place of a clear and calm mind, which is how meditation helps the organization.

Speak to your team about the idea of meditating together. See how your employees react and ask them if they are interested in doing something like group meditation. If you feel like your team may not feel comfortable speaking about it openly with others, you could conduct an anonymous survey that allows you to gain better insight. Even if not everyone agrees, you may have enough people interested in meditation to get started on these sessions. That way, you can use that as further validation on how beneficial meditation is when the rest of the remote employees begin to notice that the team members participating in these meditation sessions are improving.

Providing information

Another good way to approach your employees with the idea of group meditation is by providing facts and science that backs up the beneficial claims. Fortify the idea of how meditation can improve your remote employee's brain function, creativity, peace of mind, performance, and overall physical and mental health. The inner peace and confidence they need to increase their creativity and enthusiasm for their work.

The number of research and facts out there is abundant, so it’s easy to create a list that you can share with them. Or you could create a document that has a bunch of bullet points with quick facts on how it can benefit them. They should have links connecting to the information being provided to them. That way, they can pursue the data at their own pace. Here is some information that you could share with your team.

Consider using real-life examples to drive how much these group meditation can assist them in their everyday lives. For instance, basketball coach Phil Jackson included mindfulness techniques with the Chicago Bulls and the L.A. Lakers. While it may sound silly to see a bunch of athletes perform meditation techniques before many of the games, the results clearly show that it managed to assist them when you consider their win rates. During his time as the coach of the Chicago Bulls, he made Michael Jordan go through these meditative exercises.

Essentially, the meditation techniques involved the players quitting their minds, finding a state of relaxation among the chaos both internally and externally. Jackson made his players go through these meditation sessions to calm their minds before every game. It was an especially critical thing to go through whenever the bigger games of their careers were around the corner.

Real-world examples like these are more likely to convince your remote team to join in. These resources can be easily shared with your team by posting them on your team's channel or setting up resource pages on your company portal.

Ask for help

Before you start prepping your new group meditation intuition, reach out to coworkers across the organization who could be interested in helping you out. Doing so will take off some of the pressure from your already densely packed schedule and provide you with a way to legitimize the group meditation initiation in the eyes of your skeptical remote workers. Once you manage to gather a group of people interested in being a part of the group meditation, you are going to need an instructor who guides you through these meditation sessions.

Even if someone in your organization claims that they have experience in meditation, it's best to acquire an outsider trainer just to be safe. There are several online meditation classes that you can schedule for your remote team to participate in. The trainer will join you in the Zoom calls and instruct you through each step.

It also provides you with another opportunity to inform your team much better on the effectiveness of meditation. Sure, some of them may have joined, but they might leave if they don’t see the benefits of meditation immediately. The trainer can help clear up any answers and provide your team with any answers they need. Just make sure the person you are hiring will remain focused on the mindfulness aspect of meditation and that it’s neither religious nor overly physical. The last thing you need is someone turning the entire meditation session into something sour that could cause your employees to walk away and never return.

If your resources are too tight and you can’t afford to get yourself a trainer, there are some other ways to learn meditation techniques. YouTube is filled with a wide assortment of videos that can guide people through easy meditation exercises. It is also content for music-related videos that can enhance the mood of meditation.

Keeping it simple

Group meditation requires a certain amount of faith and trust. It can be much easier for people to trust the process of meditation individually than it would share that experience with a group of people. First-timers may even find the healing sounds and mantras to be a bit too crazy for them. Instead of going all out, guide our remote employees through simple meditation exercises and ensure that the sessions are fun and non-judgemental.

Ensuring that everyone has a good time will cause the word to spread around to the other remote employees hesitant to join these group meditation sessions. As the team continues to go through these meditation sessions, others will start to join in and get involved as well. The benefits that are provided from meditation will also begin to shine in and show the rest of the remote workforce that meditation has its advantages in improving their work productivity and efficiency. The proof should be enough to eventually get most of your employees onboarded to these meditation sessions.

Scheduling

Since you are dealing with a remote team, not everyone is going to be at the same time. That means you need to plan out how you are going to conduct these meditation sessions. Try setting these meditation sessions on a weekly or bi-weekly basis for anyone interested in joining these sessions. The instructor you hire can guide everyone in a group meditation session that lasts between ten to thirty minutes.

Of course, if some of your remote workers work in a different time zone than most, these sessions can be recorded and sent to them so they can still get something out of it. It is possible to create a resource list that contains a video on meditation or audio files that can guide them through the meditation process. Plenty of them can be found online for free and are easy enough to follow.

Conclusion

Group meditation serves as an opportunity for everyone to not only improve themselves but bond on a deeper level with their fellow team members. These sessions will have them improving in ways they were never expecting to. Your organization will see an increase in productivity, collaboration, and efficiency. Not only that, but your workers will start to notice how much better they feel themselves, leading to them encouraging others on the team to join in on these group sessions. Take the time to set up these group meditations for your team and see how much they improve over time.