Combating Stress and Conflict in the 21st Century Workplace: BUILD’ing Psychologically Healthy Workplaces
March 24, 2020
Dr. Arla Day
Despite the fact that it has been thirty years since Sauter et al. (1990) argued that we must not ignore the stress epidemic at work, and that we have an abundance of research indicating the sources of stress and conflict, we still don’t have a great understanding of HOW to address this epidemic and/or what is needed to develop and support healthy workplaces.
In her talk, Dr. Day revisits some of the basic assumptions about stress and conflict at work:
1. Stress and conflict in the workplace may be inevitable, but they aren’t necessarily ‘good.’
2. We need to take a holistic approach in fostering healthy workplaces by supporting individuals, strengthening teams, and developing leaders.
3. “Changing workplaces” actually means changing people. Therefore, we need to look at how to create behaviour change within these workplaces (as well as behaviour change in the external environment of government and society… but that is another talk!)
4. Although work is often viewed as a source of negative outcomes (burnout, stress, conflict), it has the potential for fulfilling our needs (e.g., accomplishment, safety, affiliation, etc.) Our job is to find out how to leverage these positive aspects.
Dr. Day’s talk will build off of these assumptions, integrating theory and practice into roads toward future research and real-world applications.
Bio
Dr. Arla Day is a Professor in Occupational Health Psychology at Saint Mary’s University and Director of the CN Centre for Occupational Health & Safety (www.cncentreinitiatives.com), a training, research, and community outreach centre at Saint Mary’s. She is a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association and was a Canada Research Chair for 10 years. She was awarded an Erskine Fellowship from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand to teach and conduct research on psychologically healthy workplaces. Arla serves as an international advisor on the Stockholm Stress Centre’s Advisory Board, was on the American Psychological Association’s Psychology in the Workplace Committee, and chairs the Nova Scotia Psychological Healthy Workplace Program committee.
Dr. Day’s research and consulting work revolves around developing and validating effective organizational initiatives to create healthy workers and workplaces. She has authored articles and book chapters on psychologically healthy workplaces, workplace respect and civility, leadership, employee stress and well-being, and work-life balance. She works closely with organizations to share best practices to help them develop their workplace.
Dr. Day has chaired the Occupational Health Psychology-Summer Institute since its inception in 2013. This conference brings together occupational health and safety practitioners and researchers to address current issues faced by workers and employers.
She is the Project Director for the SSHRC/CIHR-funded EMPOWER Partnership, a collaborative group of researchers and organizations, workplace experts, and stakeholders, whose goals are to provide evidence-based solutions to foster healthy workplaces by supporting workers, strengthening work groups, and developing leaders (www.empowerpartnership.org).
Twitter: @WorkHealthOHS @arladay
Facebook: @CNCentreOHS
Linkedin: arladay
