Events

Format: Online keynote and panel

As we live longer, retirement is evolving from a period of rest and relaxation into an opportunity for continued growth and fulfillment. This shift calls for a more holistic approach to retirement planning, one that includes the often-overlooked non-financial aspects. How will you spend this new chapter of life meaningfully? How will you integrate purpose, connection, and personal growth into your retirement plan?

Join Waterloo alumni Simon Chan (BA ‘98) and Kyra Jones (BSc ‘09, PhD ‘14), both featured recently in Waterloo Magazine, along with special guest retirees including Mike Drak, Canadian best-selling author on the non-financial aspects of retirement, and Waterloo Retiree and former OHD Director, Katrina Di Gravio, on Tuesday, October 29, 2024, from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. for a thought-provoking webinar on reimagining retirement. Listen to retirees share their experiences, learn about the non-financial considerations that are crucial for a fulfilling retirement, and participate in a live Q&A.

Open to all Waterloo staff interested in learning about retirement for themselves or supporting others to reframe their retirement planning.

Format: Online workshop

In today’s rapidly changing work environment, building strong and impactful work relationships is crucial to innovation, efficiency, and organizational success. Emotional Intelligence is the ability to read, understand, respond to, and manage the emotions in ourselves and others. It encourages self-awareness, internal self-regulation, and the exploration of diverse perspectives. Through effective and authentic communication, emotional intelligence will create positive relationships within our personal and professional lives.

Format: In-person workshop

This program is intended to set the foundation to help you find the level of deep health you are looking for. You will create a destination postcard that will help you define what future you may look like. With that, you will learn a system that will help you to set goals and subsequently build habits. This program will also teach you how to self-coach and reflect to adjust and pivot as you need to.

Format: Online workshop

We all know that a performance review and ongoing performance conversations are critical drivers in employee performance and motivation. These important conversations take planning, skill and confidence. Engaging in these conversations effectively has many benefits for employees, managers and the entire organization. 

Format: In-person workshop

Do you ever feel like your understanding of conflict and your reaction to it don’t align? Our individual mindsets to conflict play a big role in how we respond in moments of tension and opposition. In this workshop, participants will lean in with curiosity about how they respond to conflict, how they approach conflict, and how our narratives play out. Through individual reflection, small and large group discussion, and workplace conflict case studies, participants will gain tools to approaching conflict productively and authentically. 

Format: Online workshop

This workshop will offer a practical guide for all University of Waterloo employees to prepare for performance appraisal conversations with their managers. We will learn how to identify and discuss our accomplishments in the past year and explore what skills we would like to develop and foster in the upcoming year. 

Format: In-person workshop

In a work environment as big as University of Waterloo, we want to offer intentional space for employees in non-supervisory roles to come together to collectively think through how broader university culture and direction impacts them. Leadership Lab: Personal Leadership aims to bring individual contributors together to explore how they can lead themselves, and others by example, all while receiving and providing each other with compassionate care. 

Format: Online workshop

Menopause is a transitional stage in many people’s lives and affects not only people experiencing this stage in life, but those around them, including colleagues, family and friends. Education, resources and support have the potential to create more comfortable and inclusive workplaces and empower people through this transition. Join Stacey Jacobs from the Sexual Violence Prevention & Response Office (SVPRO) to learn more about menopause, its symptoms, and how it may affect workplace experiences and productivity. Open to all employees!

Format: Online workshop

We welcome you to join us for a half-day orientation session designed just for you. This half-day event aims to connect the dots between you and the history, culture, priorities, services, opportunities, and resources that make the University of Waterloo an exciting place to work.

Throughout this engaging and interactive experience, you will meet other new employees and representatives from across the university and you will gain a helpful, foundational understanding of your new employer. Our aim is to share with you what it means to be an employee of one of Canada's top universities, and show you how to enrich your employee experience with all that is available to you.

To ensure maximum access for participation, this event is offered twice a term: once in-person and once virtually. The next in-person offering will be in January 2025.

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: Using LinkedIn Learning for Career Development (Winter 2025) 

Topic 4: Developing Soft Skills with LinkedIn Learning (Winter 2025)