Everything You Need to Prep for Healthy Workplace Month

October is Healthy Workplace Month in Canada – and we all need to prioritize our wellbeing right now, to be sure. This year’s theme has a pandemic-appropriate flavour, focusing on feeling and doing your best at work. It’s the perfect time to encourage employees to make time for self care, and to bring their best selves to work but also be forgiving with themselves and coworkers if we’re not running at 100% right now. If your workplace is like most of those I’ve worked in this year, this feels like an incredibly relevant topic!

With just a couple days before kick-off, you’ll want to prepare for a solid roll-out. The goal of the Healthy Workplace Challenge is for organizations to implement at least one thing that will make the workplace healthier. I love that “health” in this challenge doesn’t just refer to physical wellbeing. In fact, there are four areas identified as being components of a healthy work environment: healthy lifestyles, physical environmental, corporate social responsibility and mental health/workplace culture. You can guess which one I’m going to explore the most thoroughly, but each of these domains is, of course, important and worth incorporating.

You can find all the details and download materials to use throughout Healthy Workplace Month at www.healthyworkplacemonth.ca. My favourite specific resources this year are…

• This list of activity ideas related to mental health and workplace culture

• Excellence Canada’s Workplace Mental Health Essentials Toolkit, a document to guide employers in developing a mental health strategy

• Weekly challenges to encourage your organization to take action

• Stories from workplaces across Canada who have benefited from taking the Healthy Workplace Challenge in previous years (what they did and how it improved things)

Have I convinced you yet? Accepting the challenge to take tangible steps, big or small, toward a healthier work environment and improving employee wellbeing is one you won’t regret. What pieces of Healthy Workplace Month are you most excited to tackle? Let us know in the Comments section below!

Thanks for reading, and here’s to a month of valuable steps toward optimal organizational and employee health. Stay well, my friends!

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Elizabeth Eldridge is a Psychological Health & Safety Consultant based in southern New Brunswick, Canada. In addition to frequent keynote speaking and corporate training on 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.