Events

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

Explore your education options to enhance your career at the University of Waterloo. Learn about undergraduate and graduate programs, application processes, and available professional development opportunities. In this workshop, we will discover how to enhance your career and personal growth through various educational pathways, including online and on-campus programs. Bring your questions and take the first step toward advancing your education and career! 

Format: Online workshop

Curious about how our values of Think Different, Act with Purpose, and Work Together came to life? Join us for an engaging and interactive virtual round table where you’ll explore each of these values and share your insights with colleagues from across the university.

This isn’t just a workshop—it’s a conversation. After a brief introduction to our newly launched values and a peek into the collaborative process behind them, you’ll dive into lively discussions at virtual tables (MS Teams breakout rooms). You’ll have the chance to reflect, connect, and discover ways these values can shape your work and interactions. Bring your thoughts, your questions, and your creativity as we come together to make these values part of our everyday experience.

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) 

Format: In-person workshop - January 2025; Virtual - March 2025

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.

Format: In-person workshop

Whether giving or receiving feedback, executing the process well can feel daunting if you’re not prepared. Taking time to think through and refine how to deliver feedback to a colleague can set both of you up for a successful, beneficial conversation. This practical, experiential workshop will focus on tools, reflection and discussion that participants can use in their professional and personal 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.

Consider also registering for the next step in Deep Health: Small Group Coaching (10 weeks)

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.

Format: In-person and virtual components

More than ever, strategies for coping with stress, managing your wellbeing and creating healthy habits are needed. The goal of Deep Health: Small Group Coaching is to support and educate the university community about improving individual wellbeing. This 10-week program aims to bring people together in conversation to focus on their individual health. Health coaching will help you establish, or fine-tune behaviours and habits related to sleep, stress management, nutrition, physical activity, recovery, and more.  

While not a requirement, it is strongly recommended that you have attended the Deep Health: Setting the Foundation workshop in advance. 

Format: In-person workshop

Join us for a unique workshop focused on mindful creativity in the workplace. Join facilitator and artist Zack Sandor-Kerr to explore his reverse colouring book experiences, where you doodle and draw over beautiful blobs of shape and colour. In the workshop, we will learn and develop some tools for mindful creativity, and experience the refreshing and mood-boosting power of a mid-day art break.

If you hear “making art” and typically run the other way, this session is especially for you. No experience or (perceived) skill is required. Just come and doodle.

All participants will receive their own copy of Zack’s “Not A Colouring Book.”