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Tomorrow marks the beginning of Canada’s Healthy Workplace Month: 31 days dedicated to elevating conversations about employee wellness and celebrating the innovative approaches employers are taking to support and promote wellbeing at work. One thing I always emphasize is that effective wellness initiatives don’t have be costly, with respect to either financial or time resources. In fact, starting small has the advantage of allowing new ideas to simmer within a workplace and permeate the culture before moving on to bigger ideas. It’s also important to recognize that every employee has an important role to play when it comes to wellness in the workplace – it doesn’t (shouldn’t!) fall solely to those in leadership roles or HR professionals. This month is a great opportunity to put some thought into how YOU can champion employee wellness in your work environment. That could mean presenting an idea you’ve been chewing on to your team, or something as small as taking the time to check in with your co-workers to ask (really ask) how they’re doing.
Here are a few of my favourite resources for this year’s Health Workplace Month to help get your creative juices flowing.
1. Canada’s Healthy Workplace / CanadaLife
Take the Healthy Workplace Challenge! There’s a different theme each week, complete with a list of ready-to-implement activities for your workplace. Check it out HERE. Learn more about their prestigious Great Employer Award HERE, which honours organizations who have gone above and beyond with fostering healthy workplaces.
2. Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety
CCOHS offers some great tools, resources and e-learning opportunities around fostering safe and healthy workplaces. While traditional occupational health models in workplaces still all too often focus on only the physical aspects of workplace health and safety, over the past few years CCOHS has done a great job expanding their lens to include topics related to employee mental health and psychological safety in the work environment. Visit their Healthy Workplaces page HERE.
3. World Health Organization
The WHO’s Workplace Healthy Promotion gives a breakdown of the elements workplaces need to consider when it comes to prioritizing employee wellness and fostering a healthy work environment. Click HERE for their evidence-based resources from around the world.
We’d love to hear what your organization is doing to promote wellness in the workplace! Drop a line in the Comments section below. Thanks for reading!
Elizabeth Eldridge is a Psychological Health & Safety Consultant based in southern New Brunswick, Canada. In addition to keynote speaking and corporate training on workplace mental health she is the owner/operator of Arpeggio Health Services, Atlantic Canada’s largest provider of public mental health trainings. Learn more at elizabetheldridge.com, summitcorporatewellness.com and arpeggiohealthservices.com.
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