Today@Dal

We continue to share stories coming out of the nominations from this year's Healthy Workplace Award, in celebration of October being National Healthy Workplace Month.  The award recognizes efforts across one or more of the seven dimensions of wellness. 

The Agricultural Campus is home to a working farm, with dairy, sheep, poultry, mink, 500 acres of crops and its own feed mill. Individuals working there show a great commitment to their personal physical fitness, even with such a physically demanding job. The award selection committee was struck by the "feel" of this award submission and got a real sense of the support and camaraderie within the work group on the farm. All members seem to be very involved in a wide range of activities and events; a very engaged group.  Training, safety and sustainability are all areas of focus over and above the work. Of particular note was the level of group engagement in workload discussions about this 365-day-a-year operation, with regular review and coordinated action about upcoming demands and the need to plan out who will do what to cover off multiple areas and requirements.

Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick (DMNB), located in Saint John, organized a "Spring Tune Up" to engage and motivate their staff.  The initiative included daily online challenges (posting photos, sharing healthy recipes), weekly personal goal identification, physical activity logging, enjoying a fruit-of-the-week, and a weekly speaker series on topics relevant to the group, catered with healthy foods. The selection committee was impressed that DMNB coordinated such a well-rounded initiative.  They incentivized participation and leveraged social media to engage folks beyond the face-to-face activities. And they surveyed the group afterwards to gauge how it went and shared the results back – a terrific addition to help gauge success and measure impact.

Review award winning healthy workplace practices on MyDal.

Explore what's possible for wellness in your department by contacting healthy@dal.ca.