Today@Dal

We continue to highlight this year’s nominees for Dalhousie’s Healthy Workplace Award. This week we’ll learn about the Faculty of Dentistry and Facilities Management.

The Faculty of Dentistry introduced a series of initiatives based on its results from the 2011 workplace survey indicating a stronger emphasis was needed on health and wellness for its faculty and staff. These are in addition to the Faculty’s ever-popular mindfulness program that takes place each year, where students, faculty and staff can learn meditation, qi gong breathing, discussions and journaling.

The Faculty kicked off 2012 with “The Biggest Loser” weight-loss competition, with 30 faculty and staff participating. This friendly competition, involving weekly weight reports, along with tips, recipes and lots of encouragement, led to a collective weight loss of an amazing 290 pounds over the first six months in 2012! A comment among many participants is that the Faculty lost the equivalent of two people with this much weight loss.

In addition, a softball tournament was held in late summer, comprised of six teams of more than 75 students, faculty and staff. The tournament was resurrected after a 20-year hiatus. A charity barbeque was also held and raised $500 for the Faculty’s Oral Health Development Fund.

During the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Faculty’s first graduating class, May 23-26, 2012, a 5K Fun Run was organized by the first-year Dentistry students with 40 participants walking, jogging or running the course in Point Pleasant Park. The run raised nearly $1,100 to support the Class of 2015 class fund and is expected to become an annual student-organized event.

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The Department of Facilities Management created its own Wellness Committee to help address the needs of its staff. The committee hosts introductory classes of a new sport or activity, and the first one was yoga. It was well received and surprisingly two-thirds of the participants were male. Upcoming classes will include Tai Chi, touch football and Zumba, and will be held during lunch and free to staff.

The department promotes a healthy lifestyle with tips on notice boards throughout the Central Services Building, and in lunch rooms and offices across the campuses. Currently, it is in the midst of creating a healthy cookbook with submissions from staff. The Wellness Committee also purchased pedometers as a pilot project and will introduce them across the department to help raise awareness of how many steps are walked each day.

In addition to physical activity, Facilities Management provides its staff with learning opportunities, including having special guests to discuss wellness topics and Co-op students helping staff be more familiar with some computer programs and software.

The Facilities Management team takes great pride in supporting each other, at work and outside of the workplace. The first Facilities Management scholarship was awarded this year, and is available to family member of Facilities Management staff.  Above all, the department has fun together with annual summer barbeques, softball tournament, holiday party, a tour of the Agricultural Campus and participation in the Halifax Pride Parade and Pink Day.

To get some healthy workplace ideas for your department or unit, visit Healthy Dalhousie’s website.