Thursday, October 1
8:15 am - 10:15 am
OFFICIAL OPENING & WELCOME
Deborah Connors
President
Health Work & Wellness™
and
Strategic Partner
Great West Life
OPENING KEYNOTE
Thinking Without a Box!
How to lead your organization into the Quantum Age
Ian Percy
Organizational Psychologist and Author
You know those "boxes" you keep trying to think out of? Well most of them are in your head! Get rid of them forever because they're preventing you and your organization from reaching your highest goals and dreams. Ian Percy's keynote address will show delegates how to break out of those restraints and learn to claim the unlimited power available to them. Through five simple and actionable quantum principles delegates will learn how to access their ability to achieve unimagined peace, performance and prosperity. By changing how they think, delegates will be able to take their lives and their organizations to new levels of performance, innovation or profitability.
90 MINUTE BREAKOUT SESSIONS
10:45 am - 12:15 pm
1A Building Tomorrow's Sustainable Business Workforce
Martin Chung, BSc.Phm, R.Ph
Vice-President
Aon Consulting
Danielle Vidal, BSc RN
Senior Consultant
Aon Consulting
It is widely anticipated that 2009 will be a year ripe with business challenges, transition and re-tooling of priorities. Amidst upheaval there is often greater value attached to change management and innovation, and progressive employers will see it as an opportunity to prepare for business protection and growth by investing in their people. This interactive session is intended for those interested in learning how to apply a planning and delivery architecture to devise meaningful health-related tactics in order to reach tangible business solutions. Presenters will help participants develop a strategic and measurable approach to workplace health that is linked to key business-performance indicators. They will explore a practical three-step process in order to diagnose workplace health needs and opportunities, develop a workplace-health business plan that aligns the needs of the employees with corporate priorities, and, finally, provide for an efficient and outcome-based implementation. Each step will involve real-life case studies of employers of various sizes and different industry sectors. Participants will be able to learn from examples provided and will identify what may work best in their organization.
1B The Business of Kindness; Embracing Connection, Compassion & Community in the Workplace
Olivia McIvor
Senior Consultant
The Izzo Group
Betty Mutwiri, B.Ed, MA
Manager, Learning and Leadership - People Strategies
Saskatoon Health Region
This session will showcase the development of the "Contagious Kindness" initiative at Saskatoon Health Region (SHR), the largest and most complex of Saskatchewan's 12 health regions. It will demonstrate how integrating kindness into the workplace can create a healthy, positive and engaged working environment. The presenters will show how this collaborative model of delivery can be used in a community approach to workplace health.
1C Passing the Baton
Gillian Leithman, BA, MSc
President
Directions Third Age Consultants Inc.
Caroline Samne, BA, MA
Principal
New Horizons
As the Canadian population ages, so too does the Canadian workforce. Recent findings indicate that 39% of Canadian employees aged 50 and over anticipate retiring in the next 5 years. This unprecedented demographic shift will translate into a diminishing number of Canadian workers. Due to low fertility rates and increased global competition for skilled workers, there won't be a sufficient number of younger employees to meet the staffing needs of Canadian employers. However, it's not just a problem of not having enough people to replace the retiring Boomers. According to Sowers, "The real challenge is transferring their knowledge and talents to succeeding generations of workers." Successful companies are drawing upon mentoring programs and generational diversity training in order to engage workers. Furthermore, when such programs are combined with pre-retirement seminars, older employees become active and willing partners in transferring their knowledge and grooming a new generation of leaders, as they start to look forward to life after work. This is good business, as employee engagement has been directly linked to a company's financial success. In today's talent-strapped market, jobs must deliver value beyond pay and benefits and business goals need to be in sync with the personal needs and desires of four different generations. Successful organizations will be those that capitalize on the changing dynamics and demographics of the workforce, in an effort to facilitate continued organizational growth. This 90 minute session will cover current demographic trends and will provide solutions to promote employee engagement and knowledge transfer.
1D Creating Extraordinary Cultures: Materials Distribution Agency and University of Toronto Knowledge Exchange
Joel Hershfield, B.Comm (Hons), CMA
Manager of Finance and Technology, Workplace Wellness Coordinator
Materials Distribution Agency
Teresa Scannell, M.Ed., RHN
Career and Work-Life Consultant
Organizational Development and Learning Centre
University of Toronto
A government organization, perhaps more so than other organizations, should attempt to become a healthy workplace. The interactive presentation will provide participants with a plan to transform their government organization into a healthy workplace. Joel Hershfield will describe how having a healthy government workplace facilitates the recruitment and retention of the best people and will detail how having a healthy workplace culture leaves a legacy to current and future employees, as well as to the citizens the government serves.
There is growing pressure on employers to retain their most productive employees and to attract new talent from the widest possible pool. However, reality dictates that when employees are dissatisfied with their work experience they leave, as they look for companies that will be supportive of their need for a healthy work-life balance. As a result, employers are recognizing the importance of offering work-life programs, in addition to fulfilling careers, to attract and retain employees. This case study presentation will look at how the U of T, recognizing this trend, has used work-life programs to enhance the employee experience
1E The Regeneration Gap: Creating Healthy Employee Practices
Tanis Farish, PhD
Consultant and Educator
Integrated Focus Consulting
Not working, or working too much? Regenerating and balancing our energy at work can be difficult. The demands of the workplace can influence lifestyle practices that become patterns throughout life. Optimizing the mental and physical attributes of the human body helps to shape the way people feel about their workplace and how they perform over the long haul. The big picture requires employees to regenerate and re-focus in order to achieve long-term business results.
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
SPONSORED SPOTLIGHTS
These informative sessions on topical issues are presented by sponsor companies. They are not part of the core conference sessions and have not been peer reviewed.
2A People: The Key to Organizational Performance
Karen Seward
Senior Vice President of Business Development and Marketing
Shepell•fgi
This interactive session will explore the strong and important relationship between performance and people, the necessity of keeping a focus on both, and the vital role managers play. Participants will gain insight into how leading organizations have focused on health and productivity factors to drive commitment and performance. Furthermore, participants will gain an understanding of how healthy, talented and committed employees are not only critical during challenging times but also during recovery and times of prosperity.
2B Employee Engagement: Case Studies From Across the Health Continuum
Jennifer Elia
Product Manager, HealthyRETURNS
Sun Life Financial
Doing business in turbulent times provides leaders with renewed opportunities to grow employee engagement. While engagement efforts often focus only on those who are at work, how we engage people who are off work due to illness or injury can greatly influence whether - and how soon - they come back to work, and how productive they are upon their return. This presentation will focus on interventions that make a difference across the health continuum. It will also look at the impact a healthy workplace culture can have.
2C Program Integration - What Does it Really Mean?
Bob Bayles, CHRP, BBA
Director, Human Resources
University of Saskatchewan
Marie-Helene Pelletier Ph.D., MBA
Vice President, Professional Services
Human Solutions Canada Inc.
For two decades organizations have been advised to break down the silos in their benefit programming. What does that mean? This session will look at levels of integration with a specific focus on the University of Saskatchewan's fully integrated EAP, Disability Management, Health, Safety and Wellness model. This presentation will explore working at all three levels within an organization; employee support, workplace and organizational support. This session will provide practical case examples of integrating EAP and workplace support with disability management while maintaining confidentiality and respecting the situation of the claimant. It will look at successfully providing an on-site EAP and establishing benchmarks for measuring return on investments.
2D Working Well At Every Age - How to Optimize Wellbeing in a Multi-Generational Workforce
Suzanne Paiement
Senior Consultant
Towers Perrin
Wendy Poirier
Canadian Health Care Practice Leader
Towers Perrin
Canadian companies are at the forefront of a growing global recognition that business productivity is both positively and negatively affected by workforce health. In this session, we'll share how organizations can optimize employee wellness throughout their working years, with an innovative approach to measuring and managing workforce - and workplace - wellbeing. By combining management leadership, employee opinion and rigorous metrics tied to business performance and health outcomes, employers can harness the competitive advantages of wellbeing, and can realize tangible results in absence, disability and health care costs, as well as achieve sustainable improvements in overall culture, engagement, productivity and performance.
3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
SPONSORED SPOTLIGHTS
3A Healthy Enterprise
Diane Champagne, M.G.P., CRHA
Conseillère principale / Principal
Mercer
Mario Messier, M.D.
Santé au travail - Promotion de la santé
Directeur Scientifique
GP2S
The Bureau de normalisation du Quebec (BNQ) and the Group for Promotion of Prevention Strategies (GP2S) has presented the world premiere of a completely new standard "Healthy Enterprise". The standard aims to sustainably improve the health of people in the workplace. This session will be an explanation of how the standard was developed, the requirements for certification and how to implement a program to become a "Healthy Enterprise".
3B Filling the Empty Chair: Creative Solutions For Tough Economic Times
Heather Kennedy, MBA
Team Leader
Medavie Blue Cross
In this economic climate, your most expensive chair is an empty one. In tough times, your employees ? your most valuable resource ? need additional support and creative solutions to bring their best into your workplace. Engaging and motivating leadership will make the difference in getting through this economic downturn. This session will explore how an employer has implemented a collaborative approach to addressing the difficult topic of absenteeism in the workplace, and will provide you with real and sustainable ideas for effective attendance support, disability management and personal health initiatives.
3C How to Ensure Group Benefits Maximize Employee Health and Productivity and Return on Investment
Martin Papillon, FSA, FCIA, MBA
Partner
Morneau Sobeco
This session is ideal for senior executives, HR leaders, organizational development professionals and other leaders who seek to understand how their employees and organizations can get the most from a group benefits program. The presenter will explore the range of options available to employers of all sizes and in all sectors as they look to ensure they have the most effective group benefits in place. Through discussion and statistical information, participants will gain an understanding of how group benefits impact employee health and productivity.
3D Evaluating investment performance: a healthy habit
Frédéric Lavoie, Ph.D.
Director, Patient Access
Public Affairs and Stakeholder Relations Division
Pfizer Canada Inc.
While many companies may be tempted to cut investment in workplace wellness programs (WWPs) as they look for ways to reduce costs during the current economic downturn, the financial benefit of these programs has been shown to outweigh the costs by reducing shortBterm and long-term employee absence due to disability. Effective WPP lifestyle modification interventions also help increase workforce engagement and allow employers to address the leading cause of morbidity and mortality, which in turn reduces the economic burden of illness in the workplace. Increasingly, WWPs are expected by employees and will, over time, provide a competitive advantage for employers to attract and retain the best talent. This will become particularly important in the future as the rate of employee retirement increases compared to the number of new entrants to the workforce.
