Why Virtual Wellbeing Mindfulness Sessions Are Here to Stay
John Maxwell
“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”
It’s probably fair to say that most of us have seen our use of videoconfering tools rise significantly in the past 2 months. As a result of the pandemic, organisations have had to make a difficult and important shift to running their wellbeing sessions virtually. This continued experience of what was primarily a support mechanism for most wellbeing professionals as shed some light on the ongoing benefits of virtual wellbeing sessions. In this short article, we share with you why it is our belief that virtual wellbeing sessions will remain and continue to grow in the future.
The Advantages of Virtual Wellbeing Sessions
Adversity has long been a trigger of human innovation, and the use of virtual collaboration and videoconferencing tools such as Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype have been paramount to our productivity. Here are some benefits we’re seeing from the use of such tools.
Geographically dispersed teams can all benefit from wellbeing
Previously, leaders would have all wanted to prioritise the accessibility and inclusivity of their wellbeing programs. That reality could become difficult with organisations that have growing regional operations, and a growing remote workforce (which is a developing trend).
Virtual wellbeing sessions remove the difficulty of getting all remote workers together; with just one link, we can log in at the same place and same time.
Easier Access for time-pressured workers
For some, getting to a 30 minute guided meditation sessions that took a 5 minutes of walking up and down the stairs, it may have made you double think the worthiness of taking part.
This is simply no longer an issue with virtual sessions. If you need extra time before joining, the interruption of tuning in a few minutes late is also much lesser when connecting virtually.
Lack of Space is no longer a barrier to adopting these sessions
“We would love to have yoga and meditation sessions in our offices, but we just don’t have the space for them”.
Wellbeing organisations would have heard this one before. There are other ways to solve this problem of course, like running sessions outdoors at a near by park, but no solution is as cost and time-effective as virtual sessions.
Facilitators can use collaterals more effectively for better communication
If we take the example of a virtual wellbeing workshops, videoconferencing tools might enable the facilitator to share a different screen to participants than the one they see themselves, on which a polished talk-track could enable a better conversation and overall experience.
Also, the platform might be used to provide participants with a collaboration tool with the different agendas of the discussion ahead of time, which can then be used to make sure everyone stays on track.
The result is a far more streamlined flow of communication in which everyone's point of view is taken on board and the conversation doesn't get derailed.
In summary, as organisations make working from home and flexible working arrangements the norm, it’s likely that virtual wellbeing will need to become a critical part of every organisation’s wellbeing strategy.
Making the transition to virtual is not easy, and we’ve been helping clients continue to make the most out of their transition. We would love to help you if we can, simply email us and we’ll discuss.