Healthy Workplaces Conference:
A Huge Success

Kingston, Ontario was the site of the first annual Healthy Workplaces Conference, hosted by Your Workplace magazine.

AUTHOR Karen Richardson

We spend more waking hours at work than we do anywhere else. Increased stress and mental health, motivation concerns, psychological harassment, the demands created by technology, difficult people, ergonomics, are all important issues that need to be considered in today’s world of work. But imagine working at a place where you and everyone around you enjoys going to work, you make a meaningful contribution and are valued and recognized, the team is productive and energized, learning is valued, management cares for employees and relationships are positive. Sound too good to be true?

At the first annual Healthy Workplaces Conference, Canada’s foremost experts in individual and organizational health spoke on how to initiate positive changes where you work. If the tremendous attendance at this event is any indication of the desire for healthier workplaces, then our future was looking rosy. Hosted by Your Workplace magazine on Friday, April 13, the conference featured keynote speaker Linda Duxbury, Canada’s guru on the issue of work-life balance. Duxbury spoke on how to get serious about not letting work take over your life and the challenging demands created by 24/7 technology. “Sick days and turnover are increasing, morale is often low, baby boomers are retiring and a generation of younger workers demands a ‘new set of rules’,” said Duxbury. How about going on vacation and leaving a message that you will “not be checking email or voice mail during your vacation”? Seem like a radical concept?

Humourist Deborah Kimmett, another keynote speaker, who has helped thousands of business workers improve team performance, evoked spontaneous laughter from the audience on her dynamic talk about the reality of juggling work and personal life in our fast-paced world of work.