Providing a robust suite of well-being programs is becoming a corporate responsibility and a strategy to drive employee productivity, engagement, and retention.
The Center for Corporate Learning offers programs designed to build employee resilience under the direction of Gail DePriest, senior lecturer and Clemson MBA Director of Corporate Relations & Executive Leadership. DePriest teaches professionals how to deal with work-life stress utilizing proven techniques for employee wellness.
Building resilience can be applied in the workplace and at home. It involves teaching a breathing method that aligns the heart and brain so that one's breathing slows down to create a calmer mindset, allowing a person to "reset" and think more clearly.
DePriest is a certified trainer for the HeartMath Institute, an organization with more than a quarter of a century of resilience research. Businesses and professions like law enforcement and the military have embraced this heart rate variability approach to mitigating stress. It teaches people through monitored breathing techniques and immediate biofeedback to reach a level of coherence.
Many corporations now include training in meditation and heart rate variability for the wellness of their employees. Slowing down the breath sends a calming message to the brain and reduces bad hormones like cortisol from bathing the body. Learning how to use a self-care method of this type is beneficial for better performance and clearer thinking for creativity. This can help with the health of the employee and also with recruitment and retention. Self-care tools convey a message that the organization cares about the well-being of the employee and helps reduce burnout.
