Google is infamous for its world-class amenities, but the company's free "Search Inside Yourself" class is perhaps its most compelling employee perk. "S.I.Y.," as it's called at Googleplex, balances the fast-paced, high-pressure work environment with lessons on "attention training, self-knowledge and self mastery, and the creation of useful mental habits," according to the New York Times.
S.I.Y. teaches Google employees to reflect rather than react. The seven-week course was originally devised by Chade-Meng Tan, an engineer who's worked for Google since 2000, with the help of nine mindfulness-at-work experts. "In anonymous surveys, on average, participants rated it around 4.75 out of 5," Tan told the Times. "Awareness is spread almost entirely by word-of-mouth by alumni, and that alone already created more demand than we can currently serve."
Programs that emphasize wellness and mindfulness at work like the "Search Inside Yourself" class at Google could have groundbreaking effects on team motivation, worker burnout and overall productivity. Would you take an S.I.Y. class if a similar one were offered at your place of work?
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