Trollhättan City tells us:
Every Wednesday, around ten members of the Education Administration staff meet in a conference room in the City Hall. One by one, they take a seat in a chair. It's time for mental training, a 30-minute workout that requires neither a change of clothes nor special equipment. The effect after the 2023 test round is striking - the well-being of the participants increased by 37% after the sessions. Now, the Education Administration staff is giving more people the chance to exercise their brains during working hours.
The Education Administration staff is a stable workplace with low staff turnover, both among employees and managers. The results of the annual employee survey usually indicate a high level of job satisfaction, but one parameter always stands out: employees' perceived stress.
- We chose to give a group of employees the opportunity to test mental training, in order to give them lasting tools to deal with stress and demands from different directions. The fact that our staff feel good is a win both for them and for us as an employer," says Daniel Engelin, who is head of department at the Education Administration's staff together with Charlotte Lindberg.
Joint training a success factor
Britt-Marie Ringblom, school secretary at the staff, has coordinated the mental training for the test group. One success factor has been the Wednesday standing calendar invitation, to jointly connect and conduct the live session held via Zoom.
- Both before and after the session there is also the opportunity to talk for a few minutes, which is valuable as we come from several different departments within the staff.
- In addition to the live sessions, which Britt-Marie and her colleagues have chosen to train together, there are a number of recorded sessions of varying lengths to run whenever you want via an app, says Caroline Spännar, who runs Mindworkout, the contracted company that offers mental training to Trollhättan City.
Unfamiliar at first
The results have not been long in coming. After a three-month trial period, the majority of participants said that their well-being had improved, that they felt more satisfied with their lives and that their focus/concentration had improved. Almost all of them had participated in the weekly group training and were keen to continue training in groups.
- "At the beginning it was perhaps a little unfamiliar, learning to breathe in the 'right' way and to sit together and close your eyes and try to relax, but it didn't take many sessions before it felt much easier to slow down and go into yourself," says Monica Högnert, an administrator at the Education Administration and one of those who has participated in the training.
"More united as colleagues"
In the results of the employee survey in the fall of 2023, however, Daniel Engelin and Charlotte Lindberg noted continued problems with perceived negative stress, the feeling of not being enough and difficulty planning their work among employees at the Education Administration's staff.
- Since those who have tested mental training have been so enthusiastic and the results have been so good, we are therefore giving all staff members the chance for mental training during working hours in 2024," says Daniel Engelin.
Monica Högnert and Britt-Marie Ringblom are happy that more colleagues can now participate in the training. Both participate in sessions both during and outside working hours.
- Through the training, I feel that we have become more united as colleagues and gotten to know each other better. It's great," says Monica Högnert.