The transition from happiness to mindfulness

Happiest Minds is taking some unique steps to inculcate mindfulness— through activities such as meditation and yoga.

Happiest Minds— an IT company — has extended its endeavours towards ensuring a happy and mindful workforce. The company is taking some unique steps to inculcate mindfulness, which includes meditation, yoga and more such activities.

Happiest Minds has recently adopted ‘The Mindful IT Company’ as a tagline in its logo, which will be a logical extension of their happiness brand positioning. This is indicative of Happiest Minds’ endeavour to be mindful in its actions and approach to its people, customers and community. ‘Mindfulness’ is a worldwide movement and Happiest Minds is proud to be the first Indian IT company to consciously embrace this philosophy.

Last year, HRKatha had reported how Happiest Minds uses the 7Cs and 7Ws. Now, in order to inculcate mindfulness, 60 minutes in a week have been set aside by the organisation for the team to engage in a customised blend of select techniques, such as mindful meditation, active listening, body scan, desktop yoga and mindful coaching, among others.

Raja Shanmugam, chief people officer, Happiest Minds, says, “Mindfulness is not a one-off initiative but an essential part of life that we want to nurture as an integral fragment of our organisational DNA. We are currently piloting the programme and will roll-out a half-day training session for the entire staff across the company by mid-September.”

“Every individual is different and has different needs. Therefore, the half-day training will help them understand what activities help them the most and from thereon employees can pursue activities of their interest. However, after the initial mandatory trainings, it is the benefits from these initiatives that will drive the employees to pursue them further as a part of their life at work and beyond,” he adds.

Shanmugam also shared that a few of the activities, such as meditation, active listening and more are already a usual practice amongst the employees. However, the new initiative will ensure that the smaller activities are deployed together on a more organised and large scale to make it a vital step towards having happier and mindful employees across the organisation.

A mindful company is one that offers individuals an environment to live in the moment and perform with purpose; its customers, a trustworthy partnership that understands their priorities and concerns; and the community, contributions as an empathetic corporate citizen. The focus is on being mindful, which involves living in the moment; and doing mindful, which involves perceiving deeply, processing non-judgmentally and performing empathetically.

Talking of the new tagline and its implications, Sashi Kumar, CEO & MD says, “We have distilled the principles of mindfulness for the Company and identified tools and techniques that can ensure it is practised on a daily basis. We believe this is a big step forward in differentiating ourselves not just in what we do —which is applying disruptive technologies for customer benefit — but how we do it.”

“People in pursuit of their careers should also actively pursue holistic wellness — physical, spiritual and emotional. At Happiest Minds, wellness is seen through the lens of happiness and I believe both are correlated. Mindfulness opens up possibilities for every individual, and is part of our continuing efforts towards our mission of ‘Happiest People. Happiest Customers’, said Ashok Soota, executive chairman, Happiest Minds Technologies.

The Company is one of the few firms to have had a Happiness Evangelist since 2011, to nurture an atmosphere of vibrancy and creativity. The core values of Happiest Minds (sharing, mindfulness, integrity, learning, excellence, social responsibility) lend themselves to an acronym, SMILES— a true beacon for the team.