In recent years, with remote and hybrid work modes becoming more mainstream, the shift from striving for work-life balance is evolving into work-life integration, exacerbating the challenge of disconnecting from work responsibilities during personal time.
Technology has become increasingly more present in our personal and professional lives, representing in many ways a source that can lead us to stress, where we feel the pressure always to be connected and dare not risk missing out. Technology, in a sense, has become a distraction keeping us from living in the moment or living at a hyper-accelerated rhythm every day.
However, technology can also help reinforce our path to our well-being, making habits, practices, or activities focused on caring for ourselves more accessible. Technology can be an enabler for our well-being by using applications, wearable devices, and online platforms that focus on our health, improving our habits, or following up on our medical or therapy sessions. It provides convenience and freedom of options in case for example we can’t be physically present at a place but still take care of ourselves.
Globant’s Be Kind to Yourself (BKTY) initiative is an endeavor that underscores the commitment to the holistic well-being of Globers (Globant’s collaborators). In a fast-paced and demanding professional world, this initiative seeks to create a nurturing environment where self-care, mental health and work-life balance are encouraged, supported, and celebrated. At Globant, we are aware that to reinvent the future of business, we need to prioritize people’s well-being.
Recognizing that the journey of success should never come at the cost of one’s well-being, “Be Kind to Yourself” fosters a culture of awareness, understanding, and taking action. It offers various programs and activities to improve mental, physical, and social health, strengthening the path to a more fulfilling work and life dynamic.
Here are three programs from Globant’s BKTY pillar leveraging technology to care for Globers.
- Reading for connection
“Creating a community around reading has been one of the best experiences I’ve had…Alibrate allowed me to strengthen this bond with Globers who share a love for reading and gives us a space that we feel as our own to express our passion for books freely…” – Laura Moreno | IoT Edge Engineer
Globant’s recent Alibrate app addition helps foster the habit of reading, providing multiple benefits to Globers and allowing them to connect with others. Through the ALIBRATE app, users can access timeless literary works, assemble personalized book collections, and establish literary discussion circles, serving as a tool that supports their emotional and mental health while promoting social well-being.
“The habit of reading has allowed me to overcome many difficulties in my life. It has helped me to find myself with Alibrate, the benefits of the habit of reading have become more comfortable and simple, allowing me to find a community, someone to talk to and enjoy this pleasure.”- Ivan Ortiz | Software Engineer
- Meditation for kindness
Globers can access the “Insight Timer ” plus meditation app with over 150,000 guided, engaging, easy meditation exercises, courses, and stories for children. It teaches users how to calm the mind, reduce anxiety, manage stress, sleep deeply, and improve happiness.
Through the use of this app, Globers can set out to do a meditation and connect with themselves before they start their meetings, as recently practiced by Recruiting Specialist at Globant, Victoria Zugasti, and her team:
“We take some time to connect and meditate. We start this moment of meeting that we call ‘Be Kind to Yourself,’ reflecting briefly on the talents that make us special. It seems simple, but always when it comes to ourselves, it is tough to recognize them.” For her, it’s crucial to remember that it is always good to bring balance into one’s life to achieve health, and we should take every opportunity to do something to improve our day or week, individually and collectively.
- Stop smoking to start breathing
Tobacco use is a problem for the person, family, and ecosystem. In an organizational culture promoting healthy habits and health, offering a smoking cessation tool is almost mandatory. Emilio Goldenhersch, co-founder and CEO of Mindcotine, states this as he speaks about Globant’s Stop Smoking program.
An integral program to help people stop smoking through a cognitive-behavioral approach, training the person not prepared to quit the habit through different resources such as technological tools, psychoeducational tools, and one-on-one health coaching sessions to accompany the program.
The central component of the program is virtual reality, accompanied by an app, a log book, and audio and video playlists. Emilio Goldenhersch explains that there’s a combination of psychological therapies without the therapist involved by exposing people, through virtual reality, to be in situations and scenarios where they have a strong desire to smoke. These virtual experiences teach them how to handle emerging emotions, such as guilt, frustration, or anger, where vaping or smoking represents an outlet. At the same time, it teaches them practical and emotional tools to manage these situations.
Emilio adds that a person who goes through this program learns to breathe again, among other well-recognized benefits when quitting smoking. For him, one of the biggest impediments to quitting smoking is that it is very accessible to obtain (the cigarette or vape), so the solution must be accessible as well. Using VR, according to his experience, increases the likelihood of a person being willing to quit.
“Technology grants scalability to a tough job, one-to-one psychology. From my experience, working holistically and integrally with technology in its most accessible formats and making virtual reality accessible so that everyone can use it anywhere and has a human component fulfills people’s different needs. An App, VR, or AI is not one or the other; they are all needed because each person is different and will use the technology, resource, and tool that fits their needs best.”-Emilio Goldenhersch
Learn more about Globant’s Be Kind to Yourself initiatives here.
