CWHP-A Reflections: Unit WWC00

In looking back to when I started this course, a lot has changed in my Organization and the world. I will start with what is happening globally and incorporate it into my learnings for this Lesson.

The outlook on employee health and wellness and DEI took a sharp 90 degrees when leaders on a global platform changed process. We see some of it ripple into Canada and some big corporations, and I am not sure where it will end up in a few years time to be honest. I personally think there will always be room for employee wellness as it does relate to the bottom line. With those changes, come changes closer to home for all of us in some way or another.

Just recently, we as a health authority have been put on a spending and hiring freeze. What this means, we cannot hire any new positions, or spend any other monies that have not been budgeted for. I will explain: we can change providers, say, but cannot add any other supports for our employees than the ones we have. So… we can just move our budgeted money around, if this makes sense.

As a Wellness Advisor, we had already set up a whole wellness division for our organization. With policy and procedure for everything wellness. A complete handbook. We set up internal wellness committees, shopped for the best supports and provide information to all employees regarding wellness. We hired administration and received a whole new leadership team. This is where it gets exciting for me as there is so much more than just wellness for an organization.

Life to me, is about pivoting when needed for the best outcomes. The positions that we were expecting for our Psychological Health and Safety team, are not coming as we cannot hire at the moment. In communication with our Leadership we have decided to start on the Psych safety work, with myself to start, at its inception, to bring the factors to the organization.

This course has proven to be invaluable to me at the moment, for guidance in creating our own Psych Safety department.  I will pivot from the Wellness Advisor role to create the Psych Safety role for the foreseeable future, still being involved as a subject matter expert for Wellness.

So far this course has given me a starting point of where to begin. Thankfully we are past the stage of Leadership buy-in and are now looking to create a strategic plan to implement the factors for the Organization. From here on in, I will be creating a plan to bring this work forward for our organization as I did with the Wellness department. Next step, the plan!