Reinvent the Office Library

I was recently asked to put together a list of books for a library that a client is setting up at their office and it got me thinking about just how powerful reading could be as an employee wellness offering.

Neuroscience has shown us how amazingly beneficial reading is:

• Reading literary fiction builds empathy by enhancing the ability to detect and understand other people's emotions, a crucial skill in navigating complex social relationships (Science)

• Reading not only improves your crystallised intelligence (knowledge) but more importantly, also your fluid intelligence - the ability to solve problems, understand things and detect meaningful patterns (Guardian)

• Reading increases the amount of white matter in your brain which helps you to process information more efficiently (Carnegie Mellon)

• Reading also triggers the areas of the brain that you are reading about. If you read the word 'coffee' your primary olfactory cortex is activated (NeuroImage). When you read a metaphor involving texture, the sensory cortex, responsible for perceiving texture through touch, awakens (Emory). In other words, reading provides experiential learning.

In a nutshell, reading makes you smarter and more empathetic - and all of our businesses need people with both skills.

Reinvent the office library

Setting up or re-invigorating an office library (with both non-fiction and fiction) and incentivising employee reading is easy, quick, cost effective and hugely beneficial. Don't forget to do some before and after sentiment sampling when setting up your library - you are likely to be amazed at the impact.