Samsung to require 210,000 staff to take meditation training

“Heal our employees internally through meditation!”

The mission was given to the future strategy department of Samsung Group early this year. Seven psychologists and meditation specialists were invited as meditation advisers to the group in February and asked to develop meditation programs.

The advisers included Jang Hyeon-gap, psychology professor emeritus at Yeungnam University, Kim Jeong-ho, psychology professor at Duksung Women’s University, and Seo Jeong-don, a medical professor at Sungkyunkwan University.

They developed the program over five months. Korea`s top conglomerate made minor changes before launching a meditation and practicum program for 210,000 employees ranging from entry-level to CEOs. The group once ran a counseling center for a limited number of staff at affiliates, but this is the first time for Samsung to require all employees to take meditation training.

The meditation program of Samsung is known to be different depending on business line and department. The group tried to maximize the effects by developing customized programs for factory workers and researchers.

“R&D employees tend to burn out because they cannot go home for a long time due to work,” said a group source, adding, “We decided to have meditation training to prevent physical and mental fatigue of workers.”

Samsung was encouraged to adopt the meditation program partly due to the lead of other global companies such as Google, which increased efficiency and productivity by using an internal healing program. The Web portal site provides emotional control training titled “Search Inside Yourself” including meditation. After running the program for 20 hours over seven weeks, the program is to raise the emotional quotient of staff and then confidence, capability and leadership.

Other Korean conglomerates have introduced meditation programs earlier. Hyosung Group introduced a meditation lecture for executive candidates, and the program is included in morning lectures for team leaders once a month. Last month, 30 research executives and team leaders deemed the most stressed took meditation theory and practicum classes for three days.

The participants lauded the program and gave positive feedback. “Our goal is to help employees manage stress through meditation and increase concentration at work,” said a Hyosung source, adding, “We plan to increase the number of participants gradually.”

The Korea Management Association held a seminar Thursday last week for 20 HR heads from large companies, and the main topic was alleviating employee stress through meditation.

Professor Jang Hyeon-gap said in a lecture, “When employees have moderate stress and positive-thinking brains, more theta waves enter their brains and this increases work efficiency and emotional intelligence.”

The meditation program for companies that Jang proposed lasts for eight weeks. On the first and second weeks, a person discovers the five senses by eating, smelling, looking at and listening to chewing a specific food such as raisins. This means awakening the senses of people who are usually busy swallowing food without relishing taste and smell.

The next stage is learning about one`s emotions through sitting in meditation and controlling and recovering from emotions. This is because one can care for others only after resolving one`s own problems. Based on self-control of emotions, one learns how to care for others feelings and foster leadership.

Certain experts said companies should not let individuals handle their own stress. According to a recent report by LG Economic Research Institute, "Stress level has a direct impact on a company`s performance. Companies should focus on developing only people’s capabilities but also mind control that can lead to making good judgments under severe stress.” LG added that learning to control stress is far more effective because one cannot completely remove stress.

jhk85@donga.com