From healthy employees to a healthy workplace

A healthy workplace means a lot more than just having healthy employees.

That’s the message that Graham Lowe—sociologist, author and expert on work and organizations—plans to share with the Dal community when he visits for a set of sessions on Monday, October 24.

“What I’ve found in working with a wide variety of organizations is that they’ll often contact me to come talk about health promotion, but it becomes clear very quickly that they’re interested in much more than just supporting employees to be healthy and well,” says Dr. Lowe, calling from a conference he’s speaking at in Toronto.

“They’re really looking to build an organization that would be described in the same ways we describe healthy people: resilient, agile, thriving.”

Dr. Lowe was a professor of sociology at the University of Alberta for 25 years, but now focuses his attention on his consulting business based out of Kelowna, B.C. His expertise is sought after by both companies and conferences across Canada and around the world, particularly his perspective on how structures, systems and culture need to evolve to create healthier, more sustainable organizations.

His latest publication is his 2010 book, Creating Healthy Organizations: How Vibrant Workplaces Inspire Employees to Achieve Sustainable Success.

Improving a workplace culture

Dr. Lowe will be leading three sessions at Dalhousie, one of which—a talk titled “How to Build a Healthier Organization”—is open to the public, sponsored by Human Resources. (To register, visit the Employee and Organizational Development website - registration closes October 20.) The other sessions will be with senior university leaders and with the Workplace Survey Strategy Committee, focusing on how the university can best leverage the latest results to improve Dal’s working culture.

“When it comes to universities and healthy workplaces, a couple of things stand out, and I see these as real positives,” he says. “The first is that you have a highly educated and committed workforce, and that’s not true in every industry.

“The second is that we’re not talking about one workplace here – we’re talking about multiple workplaces. And I see that as a positive as well, because you can encourage all sorts of front-line or grassroots initiatives to improve the work environment.”

Identifying opportunities

While he says that the rhetoric about healthy workplaces has outpaced the actual change in many organizations, he says that’s understandable: the change in perception often takes the lead ahead of action. Now, he says, is the time for organizations like universities to take a leadership role in building a healthy workplace.

“A lot of what I’m doing these days is helping to identify the best opportunities for organizations to actually move up to that next level, to look at the culture of how jobs and work environments are designed, to look at connections really between all of their people initiatives and the overall strategies for their organization.”

Event: Graham Lowe - How to Build a Healthier Organization
Date: October 24, 2011
Time: 3:00-4:30 p.m.
Location: Room 224, Student Union Building
Free to attend. To register, visit the Employee and Organizational Development website.  Following Dr. Lowe's talk will be a presentation of Dalhousie’s first Healthy Workplace Award.