May 2020 Newsletter | New Workshop Offerings and More

MAY 2020 – As OHD is charting this new virtual working environment alongside University employees, we are exploring different platforms (Microsoft Teams, WebEx, etc.) and tools to deliver content and continue providing learning and development opportunities for the University community.  Our spring offerings will be in trial formats as we develop a delivery framework that works best for both our learners and our facilitation team.  Our calendar of workshops for this month is available now and lists several learning and development opportunities from our office, online resources we will be releasing, as well as several more offerings of our Community Connect webinars (more on those later!)   More workshops and offerings will be added throughout the spring term. 

For this month, we are offering several workshops including:

• Encouraging Belonging and Inclusion (Two-Part Workshop) - Fostering and encouraging a sense of belonging creates an inclusive community that respects and values differences while providing equal access to opportunities.  This session explores important resources and policies that support belonging at the University of Waterloo and how to recognize barriers to belonging.
  May 14, 10 - 10:30 am & May 25, 10:30 am -12 pm
• Strengthening Your Emotional Intelligence (Three-Part Series) - The sessions explore the science underlying emotional intelligence and strategies to improve relationships, build self-awareness, and learn the competencies that constitute emotional intelligence. You must participate in all three virtual modules to complete this series.
  May 15, May 22, & May 29, 1:30 –3 pm
• Personality Dimensions - Discover your individual preferences, styles and temperaments, while learning to recognize and appreciate the preferences of others. (Note: Limited registration spaces available)
  May 15, 2 - 3:30 pm
• Managing Compassion: Staying Well While Helping Others - learn the qualities and behaviours of compassion while gaining practical strategies to better handle work and home stress. You will develop a plan which will help you to stay well while helping others --- together, we will rise to meet this challenge.
  May 25, 10– 11:30 am
• Staying Connected and Customizing Your Service (While Working from Home) - Learn tips and strategies to personalize your service experiences, stay relevant and consistent with messages, and support yourself and others.
  May 28, 10– 11:30 am

If you are interested in taking these courses, please register through Workday.  These online workshops will take place on Microsoft Teams. An attendance link will be sent to you by the facilitator. 

OHD and CEE Host Working Remotely/Managing Remotely Live Question & Answer Webinars

With working remotely from home being the new normal, you may have questions on how others are managing their home working situations. Organizational and Human Development (OHD), with Co-operative and Experiential Education (CEE), is hosting two live Question and Answer Webinars to offer some support from Waterloo’s leaders in working and managing teams remotely.  This series is part of our Community Connect webinars and videos. The first webinar, Strategies for Working From Home Q&A (May 5), will have two employees from CEE, who work from home regularly, answer your questions on how they make it all work.  The second webinar, Managing Remote Teams Q&A (May 7), takes a look at a manager’s perspective as leading people you don’t see on a day-to-day basis poses unique challenges.  

To prepare for these live events, be sure to check out OHD’s latest Community Connect videos where CEE employees share some of their top tips.  Please register for these webinars and submit any questions you may have prior to the event.

Check out our calendar for more of this series.  

Other Opportunities: Sustainability Certificate

The Sustainability Office is excited to offer the Sustainability Certificate once again to all University employees for the upcoming spring 2020 term. This series of courses is intended to help Waterloo embed sustainability into campus culture, one of the major goals of the University’s Environmental Sustainability Strategy. It includes seven modules that cover key local and global sustainability issues, what the University is doing, and tools and resources for employees to integrate sustainability into their own departments, homes, and beyond.

Sessions will be held remotely through Microsoft Teams, and registration will be managed through Workday. For a list of session dates and more information, please visit the Sustainability Certificate webpage.

NEW: The Sustainability Office is launching a new version of the series on LEARN to support independent learning. The course will include the same content as existing sessions, but learners will complete in-course quizzes and reflections in the place of group discussions and activities. The series will open in early June and close at the end of August for the pilot offering. More details will be included in the next OHD newsletter. (Please note that, at this time, employees can’t mix and match sessions from each stream.)

Please Note: OHD cannot assist with the Sustainability Certificate courses.

May is Sexual Violence Prevention Month

During May anti-gender based violence advocates, including the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office (SVPRO) at UWaterloo and the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region (SASC), encourage our communities to pause and reflect on the significant impacts of sexual violence, both locally and across the globe. We also use this time to educate people on #RapeCulture; unpacking the root causes of sexual violence, and to enhance skills for preventing such violence; to take action and work collectively towards creating a #ConsentCulture. And May, is a good time to increase our communities’ awareness of supports and resources available.

Please Note: OHD cannot assist with the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office (SVPRO) courses.

@OHDuwaterloo

OHD is on Twitter! Our handle is ‎@OHDuwaterloo.  As part of outreach, we will be sharing links and micro-learning through our Twitter feed.  If you use that platform, please follow us.  If not, you can view what we’ve posted on the Twitter widget on the OHD homepage or by visiting our main twitter page.  

Employee Assistance Program

As mentioned earlier, we are all handling working from home and the COVID-19 situation in different ways. If you are having difficulties, there is support available. As part of the Employee Assistance Program (Policy 67), University of Waterloo employees and their dependent family members have a range of health and wellness services under the Employee and Family Assistance Program (EFAP), provided by Homewood Health Inc. The program is a complement to the current benefits program, at no additional cost to employees.

We are here to help! Questions about workshops or registration? Please contact OHD about workshop registration, including cancellations and enrollment.    

Questions about this communication? Please contact Mark Lisetto-Smith, Manager, Operations and Marketing, Organizational and Human Development.