Engaging employees in wellness: Insights from workplace champions

11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Online

Aviroop Biswas
Institute for Work & Health

Champions are often cited as important facilitators of employee participation in workplace wellbeing activities. However, little is known about their experiences or the approaches they take to engage colleagues in wellbeing efforts. Understanding how formal and informal champions carry out these roles is essential to appreciating their potential impact and determining what supports are needed to strengthen their contributions to workplace wellbeing.

In this presentation, Dr. Aviroop Biswas shares findings from a qualitative study of workplace wellbeing champions across Canada. The study explored how formal and informal champions promote wellbeing within their organizations—as well as their motivations, the activities and strategies they use, and the successes and challenges they face in engaging peers across diverse organizational contexts.

About presenter(s)

Dr. Aviroop Biswas is a scientist at the Institute for Work & Health. He is also an assistant professor in epidemiology at the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Biswas’s research aspires to improve the sustainability of employment and the prevention of future worker injury and chronic disease by informing health promotion activities related to healthy physical activity and worker wellbeing. His recent research projects include examining how different workers’ daily activity profiles are associated with their risk of chronic disease, understanding how workplace wellbeing champions can support engagement and participation among their colleagues, and exploring how different work arrangements (including telework) shape work-life balance and wellbeing.

About IWH Speaker Series

The IWH Speaker Series brings you the latest findings from work and health researchers from the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) and beyond. For those unable to attend, the recorded webinar of most presentations in the IWH Speaker Series are made available on its web page within a week of the event.