PEACE FOCUS WORK

At PeopleStrong’s office in Gurgaon, at 11 am sharp, lights are dimmed and, for ten minutes, the speakers play music that can calm nerves. People stop working, focus on their thoughts, and are expected to just be with themselves. The aim is to help them incorporate mindfulness in their everyday routine so that they live better lives and, more importantly, are more productive at work.

Mindfulness became popular in corporate circles in 2007 when Google developed a course, ‘Search Inside Yourself’, for its employees. Soon, from a way to relieve stress, it became a productivity tool and is now part of employee engagement programmes at several companies, says mindfulness coach Sapan Shrimal, also a co-founder of HR services platform Strat-Board. Bill Ford, Executive Chairman of Ford Motor