Our Event, Social Challenges, and 2020

22nd October 2020

In January 2020 I started planning my 2nd Wellness In The Workplace Event. It was supposed to be today, and tomorrow October 22nd and 23rd at Tigh-Na-Mara, a local resort.

Social Challenges

Safe to say I’m disappointed that it’s not happening after last years success, and the community support shown for this years bigger, and better event.

Instead of celebrating wellness in the workplace together, and engaging and discussing with you all how we can make our workplaces better, we are all in various forms of isolation with social unrest in plain site.

I think it’s safe to say that when considering wellness, as Canadians we have room for improvement with the pandemic, black lives matter, and escalating tensions within indigenous relationships, not to mention growing homelessness issues in our front yard, or parks to be precise.

CBC Coverage of the escalating dispute in Nova Scotia over lobster harvesting between Mi’kmaq First Nations and commercial fisherman

These topics in 2020 are revealing in relation to our perception of wellness and the contrast of how we perceived wellness at work in 2019 compared to 2020. Who hasn’t had a shift in how they perceive health, safety, and wellness at work this year?

Irony

Kind of ironic, don’t you think? Given all the the focus on these issues this year, our Wellness In The Workplace Event would have had so much to discuss, and perhaps a touch more relevance.

The event was intended to have a strong focus on engagement, diversity, and inclusion, and the benefits, and impacts they have on wellness at work. I’m still hoping to hold an event, more on that later.

I didn’t realize at the beginning of the year how important some of the topics I wanted to include at the event might become in 2020. Some of the speakers and topics that were lined up include:

A panel of speakers representing 1st nations, women in business, and those who have recently migrated to B.C. to discuss the role of diversity in the workplace, and it’s impact on wellness.
There was a speaker from the Royal Canadian Navy who was going to touch on the challenges of racial prejudice in the workplace, and how it can impact health, safety, and wellness.
Vancouver Island University was going to speak to the importance of interpersonal resilience, and the importance of diversity and engagement in a healthy workplace.
Worksafe BC were going to speak about the role that bullying, harrassment, and violence in the workplace play in a safe and healthy work environment.

Learning Lessons

2020 has brought us many things to consider more deeply in the workplace, including our relationships with the indigenous people of our communities, where we really are with equality, and how we see and understand white privelage.

The black lives matter movement should create opportunities for us all to reconsider existing prejudices and how we can address them

The pandemic has reminded us how important social connections are, and in general, 2020 has required businesses to focus on health, safety, and wellness from different perspectives.

What’s Next?

I am contemplating hosting an online version of the event, or possibly holding off until next year to see if the spring allows for in person events like Wellness In The Workplace.

When I do get the next Wellness in the Workplace event figured out, I think there will be many lessons for us to consider and digest.

If you’d like to suggest topics, or provide feedback I’d love to hear from you, contact us at info@carbonsafety.ca

Stay tuned as I mull all of this over, hopefully we’ll be up and running with another event soon, and we’ve made some progress with some of our social challenges and can celebrate that progress when we do!

Final Thought

Closing thought, disruption can bring change, and change can bring opportunity. What opportunities does 2020 bring us?

Posted in: News & Events

Tags: Wellness in the workplace