Events

Format: Hybrid conference

The Waterloo Staff Conference is an annual two-day learning and development opportunity designed exclusively for staff to attend for free at Waterloo. Featuring employee-led workshops and expert keynote speakers, the conference is hosted by Human Resources' Organizational and Human Development (OHD) team and made possible through the Staff Excellence Fund. 

Upwards of 1500 staff members participate every year, and it’s a wonderful way to delve into new topics, reflect on your own professional growth, and connect with colleagues from across all our campuses.

Format: Online workshop

Formerly known as Exploring Your VIA Character Strengths. Knowing your character strengths and how to use them is essential to your career growth and development. In this workshop, we will explore our personal strengths using the VIA Character Strengths assessment tool. We will explore how our strengths can be used in new ways at work and at home. Finally, we will learn how to spot and appreciate the strengths of others, including our colleagues, to create stronger connections with them. 

Format: Online workshop

Practicing self-compassion is sometimes viewed as being self-indulgent, self-absorbed or letting ourselves off easy. In fact, self-compassion enables us to evaluate our experiences more rationally and also kicks in to help us develop more effective solutions for making things better. Research shows that practicing self-compassion is a powerful tool for motivation and is strongly related to psychological well-being, including increased life satisfaction and resilience and decreased anxiety and depression. Join this session to learn about how to start implementing self-compassion in your own life.

Format: Online workshop

Join us for a 45-minute LinkedIn Learning (LIL) Lunch and Learn session designed to help you unlock the full potential of LinkedIn Learning. Whether you're new to the platform or looking to deepen your knowledge, this workshop will provide you with practical tips and strategies to make the most of your learning journey. Come and discover what LinkedIn Learning can do for you and use it to craft your own professional learning journey! 

Note: The topics of each LIL Lunch and Learn session will vary. Our current topics include: 

Topic 1: Introduction to LinkedIn Learning 

Topic 2: Building Your Personal Learning Path with LinkedIn Learning 

Topic 3: Hey LinkedIn! Tapping into LinkedIn AI for Professional Development (coming soon) 

Topic 4: Developing Soft Skills with LinkedIn Learning (coming soon) 

Format: Online workshop

What is "purpose?" How do our purpose and values affect how we live, work, and interact with others? In this workshop, we will explore the concept of purpose by mapping out our accomplishments, interests and values using the Japanese concept of Ikigai, which means "a reason for being." We will then gain practical tips for finding and discovering our purpose using our personal aspirations. At the end of this workshop, we will develop a personal “Purpose-for-Now” statement that aligns with and reflects our values and goals. 

Format: Online course

Emotional intelligence encompasses the personal, emotional, and social abilities and skills which allow us to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures. Those with high emotional intelligence readily recognize their feelings, manage their reactions, and build positive interactions with others. In this guided asynchronous course, we will unpack what emotional intelligence is. Then, we’ll learn to develop our emotional intelligence to improve our personal resilience and performance, and learn to apply the appropriate emotions skillfully at the appropriate time.

Format: Online course on LEARN

Understanding the fundamentals of giving and receiving feedback is a crucial first step to being able to experience the process productively. Feedback does not need to be stressful, particularly when a culture of feedback is created within a team. Be part of fostering this culture within your department by gaining awareness of the feedback loop, recognizing when to offer feedback, and how to receive feedback with grace. Participants will also have the opportunity to navigate through practice scenarios, as well as create a document to articulate their own personal feedback preference, which they can share with colleagues, managers or others with whom they work closely.

Format: Online workshop

More and more people are finding themselves caught between the conflicting demands of taking care of aging family members, while at the same time raising children, members of this “sandwich generation” may experience a considerable amount of stress. Learning to weigh the needs of multiple generations within one family is one of the most difficult parts of caregiving and continuing to attend to one’s own emotional needs is vital to avoid chronic stress and burnout. 

Format: Online workshop

Join us for a 45-minute LinkedIn Learning (LIL) Lunch and Learn session designed to help you unlock the full potential of LinkedIn Learning. Whether you're new to the platform or looking to deepen your knowledge, this workshop will provide you with practical tips and strategies to make the most of your learning journey. Come and discover what LinkedIn Learning can do for you and use it to craft your own professional learning journey! 

Note: The topics of each LIL Lunch and Learn session will vary. Our current topics include: 

Topic 1: Introduction to LinkedIn Learning 

Topic 2: Building Your Personal Learning Path with LinkedIn Learning 

Topic 3: Hey LinkedIn! Tapping into LinkedIn AI for Professional Development (coming soon) 

Topic 4: Developing Soft Skills with LinkedIn Learning (coming soon) 

Format: Online workshop

When we experience perceived opposing goals, viewpoints, or interests with others around us, we stall in our ability to solve problems. Understanding what conflict is and how it shows up in our lives is an important first step in resolving it. In this workshop, you will complete the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model Instrument to gain insight into five different conflict-handling behaviours, and whether you might be overusing or under-using one or more of them. Based on a mix of individual reflection, small and large group discussion, we will explore what conflict is, how it appears at work, and introduce strategies and tools to begin addressing it productively.