I do yoga with my bosses

Twice a week, Polly Payne puts on skimpy shorts and a bathing-suit top and heads to a yoga studio with two male superiors from her office. In a small 104-degree room (with 40 percent humidity), she and her bosses contort their bodies into shapes that most HR departments would deem “unacceptable.”

But for Payne, 23, and her colleagues Jamie Schutz, 37, and David Shay, 40, this is the ultimate way to bond — and climb the corporate ladder.

“I think it’s really cool to do something that’s healthy for you,” says Payne, a product planner for brand sales at CPX Interactive, an online ad network in the Flatiron District. “And I think it makes you a better employee. I know I’ve seen an increase in [my] productivity after yoga.”

Schutz goes even further in his praise for intra-office Bikram, which he started doing three months ago. “It creates a loose environment so that the next day at work, you’re a cohesive unit,” says Schutz, director of business development at CPX. “It is a healthy experience, as opposed to going out to a bar.”

Pack up the golf clubs and roll out the mats — yoga is the hottest sport for NYC high-fliers looking to bond with the boss. A calm, intimate activity that requires mental strength and physical agility, office yogis swear the sport betters their bodies — and their office standing.

Corporate consultant Amy Hedin has noticed that more of her clients are using yoga to boost their careers, partly because they’ve realized that connecting over cocktails and beer can do more harm than good.

“They woke up one day and thought, ‘I can’t be doing this!’ ” explains Hedin, 35, who advises the “top 0.5 percent” of companies worldwide, including some in NYC. “I have one client in particular who said he would go to this one private golf club three times a week with his work peers, get really hammered, have four or five martinis. Now he’s going home or going to work out.”

And while health is more important nowadays, so too is letting your guard down with your colleagues in a unique environment.

“An executive might use golf as an icebreaker with a potential or existing client; it’s really more about drinking and socializing in a relaxed atmosphere — but yoga makes more sense for an executive seeking to take a pre-existing relationship to the next level,” explains Hedin.

Of course, building intimacy with your boss while you’re wearing next to nothing can feel awkward at first.

“It can get a little weird because the outfits tend to be a bit skimpy ­— especially with the guys, because they wear those boxer briefs and it’s like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I want to see that!’ ” laughs Payne. “Everyone’s a little nervous about their bodies. But once you stop with your apprehensions, you’re fine. All you can think about is how much you’re sweating.”

This is true for employees at Alice Marshall PR, who step away from their computers and slink into downward facing dog poses every Wednesday at 6 p.m.

The ritual started about a year ago when company founder Alice Marshall shelled out $125-a-week for her private yoga instructor to give classes to her employees at their office in the Flatiron District.

“We’d move the furniture around,” says the p.r. guru, who was taking a yoga teacher-training course at the time. “The good thing about yoga is . . . you can do it anywhere.”

When the instructor got pregnant, Marshall started teaching the sessions herself. Now, about five employees from her 10-strong team join in each week.

“I think working with people you like and sharing something with them makes people more productive . . . it also just gives my employees a second wind,” says Marshall.

Maybe that post-bonding zeal is why Jay Solomon’s yoga acumen was such a hit on the interview circuit last year.

When Solomon, 25, was applying for jobs in real estate, there was one achievement on his CV that always got a response.

“I put advanced yoga practitioner . . . just some bulls – – t at the bottom of the resume,” says Solomon. “All these guys were like, ‘Oh, I do yoga, come here, let me show you my yoga mat in the office,’ ” he recalls.

The East Villager now works at a private equity real estate fund in Harlem. Three weeks after he was hired in September, Solomon suggested he and his boss hobnob over half-moon poses. They now practice hot power yoga once a month together at an Upper East Side studio.

“I just knew that he loved yoga, and I thought it’d be something good that we could do together,” explains Solomon.

Today, he credits his love of yoga with giving him a leg up in the job market.

“I think it automatically marks you as slightly alternative, creative and modern . . . If I put the gym or weightlifting [on my resume], I don’t think people would care as much.”

dschuster@nypost.com

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