Management through Mindfulness

By Mechatronic Production Systems Ltd
schedule12th Feb 14

Mindfulness training is helping engineers at a cutting edge Robotics company
Mechatronic Solutions to manage stress as demand increases to meet a year on
year growth of over 50% each year for the past 3 years.

The background to the company growth is that Sales have increased to
£4million in this current year and our Profit performance has also accelerated.
We have reduced our market dependency in the Automotive supply chain from 95% 5
years ago to 49% in 2013 -14 and have trebled our client list across 3 major
sectors. Our aim is to reach £6 million within the next 2 years £10million in 5
years.

To meet the rising demand we have increased our core workforce with 5 new
engineers and have been growing our relationship with reliable contractors in
all mechatronic disciplines. Already we are outgrowing the premises we moved
into in 2011 and are looking to a 50% expansion in space.

To help our senior team of 12, Mechatronic Solutions has provided its
engineers with two one-hour mindfulness workshops to increase productivity,
wellbeing and creativity.

These workshops, facilitated by Dr Jane Upton, draw from Search Inside
Yourself, a personal growth program developed by a software engineer for Google
employees. This programme focuses on developing emotional intelligence through
mindfulness. Google have found that participants are more productive at work
and better leaders. They are also more peaceful, happy and compassionate
individuals.

Managing Director of Mechatronic Solutions Richard Evans initiated the
workshops to support engineers both at work and home.

“Our Greatest assets are our employees and their greatest assets is the
ability to think creatively which this approach emphasises and facilitates, whilst
recognising being creative is difficult to do in the daily pressure of work we
wanted to give our staff the opportunity to have tools that would enhance this
process at the same time be beneficial to their all-round wellbeing’’. 

‘’Clear thinking and dealing with stress is the essence of running
successful large technical projects simultaneously, this requires close
collaborative working to get the best results and communicating both internally
and externally. An objective of mindfulness is to help shape a clear mind and
pathway to increase effectiveness’’

‘’I am delighted by the response of our team they are so enthusiastic about
finding a new perspective on work-life balance and has helped with our
collaborative working which is central to our ethos. Jane is bringing a fresh
approach which I am sure will be adopted by many companies who want to realise
this potential’’ Richard Evans explained.

The workshops took place during working hours, and although attendance was
not mandatory, staff were happy to attend, enjoyed the workshops and gave
positive feedback.

Chris Gibson Operations Manager said that he “thought it was brilliant and
he could really see the relationship to creative thinking with a clear mind. He
added that he “found the workshops very interesting and useful. They were well
run but light, which helped everyone relax and be more open minded. All in all
a very productive couple of hours.”

Stewart Hall, Project Leader, also thought that workshops really useful and
the content of the workshops ideal. He explained that “by using the simple
breathing techniques at least once a day, I’ve found it easier to switch off in
the evenings… As things are getter busy at Mechatronics, I can see that having
control of my emotions will be a great benefit.”

Richard says that there is huge opportunity especially in SME’s for further
personal development for those wanting to travel further. This is a red hot
topic with huge payback for everyone and I would highly recommend Jane to any
business if they care about personal development. Jane is an amazing
facilitator who comes  highly
recommended.

Link to www.Mechatronic.co.uk and www.justbefree.co.uk