Corporate yoga has been growing in popularity, many firms have a dedicated yoga room in the office in cities like London, New York, Amsterdam, and San Francisco, and now this trend has arrived in Asia, in Hong Kong we have seen many large multinational companies partake in weekly yoga classes over the years, small local businesses are also following suit. Transforming the office pantry or the company boardroom to host mindfulness classes, back care yoga, or chair yoga is an effective way to look after staff and bring more calming energy into the office environment. Emotional contagion states that our environment influences our emotions and they influence others, making a concerted effort to bring more tranquillity into the workplace has cascading ripple effect of positivity for the workforce. Corporate wellness offerings have historically been discounts to yoga studios and gym memberships but now there have been a lot of findings around the benefits of practicing personal care routines within the office as having a more positive impact on workforce wellbeing.
Lastly, office yoga demonstrates accountability, where teams believe in self-care and allocate time and priority to showing up for the classes. When leaders join the classes it acts as a signal to the entire firm that it is encouraged to take time for yourself and look after yourself and in fact, it is your personal responsibility to do so. Many attempts at corporate wellness don’t translate in results due to low engagement and staff being too busy to ever show up to the programs offered, office yoga is an easy and transparent way to help tackle workplace stress and occupational tension as it incorporates elements of relaxation, balance, fitness, and agility.
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