Can Organisations Leverage Mindfulness Training To Reduce Employee Turnover?

The concept of mindfulness – the purposeful, open-minded, and present-centred attention and awareness – is moving from a largely contemplative practice to a mainstream organisational idea. Leaders in top companies such as Google and Intel have begun implementing mindfulness initiatives for their employees, as researchers establish more empirical links between mindfulness with employee well-being and performance. Jochen Reb, an Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources at the SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business, has been conducting research on mindfulness in organisations for more than a decade and recently published a ground-breaking book titled Mindfulness in Organisations. He is also the Director of the Mindfulness Initiative @ SMU, established at the University in 2013. In this podcast, Associate Professor Reb shares his research which found that mindful employees feel less emotionally exhausted, and as a result perform better and have lower turnover intentions. He urges companies to invest in mindfulness training and initiatives, especially given the substantial scientific evidence for the significant benefits that they can bring at a relatively low cost.