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Brave New Workplace - Virtual
3.5-hour Program

Brave New Workplace - Virtual

Designing productive, healthy and safe organizations

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Brave New Workplace - Virtual

About the program

After a period of tremendous upheaval, we are entering a new age of work. Employees are demanding change and it’s up to organizations to transform alongside them.

What does the future of work need to look like if organizations are to thrive? What steps should leaders take to create environments where employees feel appreciated and inspired to do great work?

In this program, leadership expert Julian Barling, Borden Chair of Leadership at Smith School of Business, synthesizes almost a century of research and lessons from everyday experiences, and argues that we should focus on creating environments in which employees can flourish, rather than relying on the resiliency of workers to withstand difficult working conditions.

Participants will learn about the seven elements involved in building an exceptional workplace: high-quality leadership, autonomy, belonging, fairness, growth, meaning, and safety.

Participants will also learn that employees are not asking management to relinquish total control. Similarly, organizations do not need to change in all seven elements. Instead, small changes in some of these seven elements will make a big difference to employees and organizations.

In this program you will:

  • Re-evaluate what work should look like to achieve productive, healthy, and safe work
  • Delve into the seven interrelated features of work and how they can result in productive, healthy, and safe organizations: Leadership, Autonomy, Belonging, Fairness, Growth, Meaning, and Psychological & Physical Safety
  • Review and discuss real-world case studies for current management on each of the seven features of work

Discounts Available

Registered Charities

Queen’s Executive Education is pleased to offer a limited number of discounted seats in every program to employees of Canadian registered charities. Check your eligibility to receive a registered charity discount

Volume Discounts

Queen’s Executive Education is pleased to offer a 15% discount for organizations that pre-pay for five or more seats on any of our programs within a 12-month period. Check your eligibility to receive a volume discount

Personal Benefits

The concepts and tools taught in the program will greatly enhance your leadership skills

  • Inspires participants to think more about the nature of work
  • Helps participants understand why they love [or hate] their jobs/work
  • Reminds participants that small changes really do have a big impact in the long term

Organizational benefits

Enhancing your leadership skills will have a significant impact across your organization

  • Facilitates a re-thinking by senior leadership and decision makers of what is really required for productive, healthy, and safe work and organizations
  • Introduces a discussion of high quality leadership, the sense of autonomy and feelings of belonging and fairness, growth and development opportunities, meaningful work, and psychological and physical safety
  • Emphasizes all seven dimensions contribute to productive, healthy, and safe work; dispels the myth, for example, that different leadership behaviours are required for productive, healthy, and safe work
  • Allows decision-makers to learn that all seven dimensions can be achieved and without massive upheaval for the organization

Program Content

This program offers leaders the opportunity to re-consider what work should look like if we are to achieve productive, healthy and safe work. The program is “evidence informed” – i.e. based on almost a century of research on organizational psychology and behaviour, in good times and bad, and lessons learned from working with organizations for more than three decades. During the program, we will discuss the seven interrelated features of work that can result in productive, healthy, and safe organizations: Leadership, Autonomy, Belonging, Fairness, Growth, Meaning, and Psychological & Physical Safety, concluding with lessons learned for current management.

Segment 1

Why we need to re-focus as we emerge from the pandemic, and why we need a focus on “brave”, “new” & “work”; assumptions underlying the model of brave, new, workplaces.

Segment 2

In depth consideration of each of the seven dimensions and features.

Segment 3

Group work.

Segment 4

Discussion and conclusions.

Dynamic Virtual Classroom

Participate in the program from anywhere. Our online learning platform combines live, interactive video instruction with breakout sessions, panel discussions, and expert Q&A.

Our learning platform is fully encrypted, allowing you to connect securely from home, office or anywhere in between.

Virtual programs are designed to fit within your schedule, allowing you to learn new skills and immediately put them to work.

Session Leaders

Session leaders include senior professors from Smith School of Business and knowledgeable experts from industry. These outstanding teachers are constantly in touch with today's business world through real-world business experience, Board memberships and their own consulting practices.

Julian is the author of The Science of Leadership: Lessons From Research for Organizational Leaders, which was published by Oxford University Press (New York) in January, 2014. His research interests focus on the nature and development of transformational leadership and employee well-being, and he is also the author of well over 200 research articles and book chapters, and the author or editor of several books, including Employment, Stress and Family Functioning (1990, Wiley & Sons); The Union and Its Members: A Psychological Approach (1992, Oxford University Press); Changing Employment Relations: Behavioral and Social Perspectives (1995, American Psychological Association); Young Workers (1999, American Psychological Association); and The Psychology of Workplace Safety (2004, American Psychological Association). He is also co-editor of the Handbook of Workplace Violence (2006, SAGE Publications), and senior editor of both the Handbook of Work Stress (2005), Handbook of Organizational Behaviour (2008), all published by SAGE, The Psychology of Green Organizations (2015) and Work and Sleep: Research Insights for the Workplace (2016), both published by Oxford University Press).

Julian was formerly the editor of the American Psychological Association's Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, served as the chair of the American Psychological Association's Task Force on Workplace Violence in 2001-2, and was the chairperson of the Advisory Council on Occupational Health and Safety to the Ontario Minister of Labour from 1989-1991.

Julian is a Fellow for the Royal Society of Canada, the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Canadian Psychological Association. Julian was the recipient in 2016 of the Distinguished Contributions to Industrial and Organizational Psychology by the C-SIOP Division of the Canadian Psychological Association.

Julian was named one of the 2020 recipients of the Distinguished University Professor designation, Queen’s University’s highest research-related honour. MacLean's magazine named Julian as one of Queen's University's most popular professors in 1996. Julian received the National Post's "Leaders in Business Education" award in 2001 and Queen's University's Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision in 2008.

Julian received his Ph.D in 1979 from the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he subsequently taught in the Psychology Department. He joined Queen's University in 1984, initially teaching in the Department of Psychology. Julian moved to the School of Business in 1994; and served as the Associate Dean with responsibility for the Ph.D, M.Sc and Research programs in the School of Business from 1997-2011.

Available for Teams & Organizations

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