In the wake of the pandemic, remote work has become the new norm. It's also become a new source of stress for people who aren't used to a totally virtual work environment.

But it looks like working from home is here to say, even post-Covid.

Many Canadian businesses are giving employees the option to continue working from home after the pandemic subsides.

And some are ditching their physical office space and going permanently online.

This massive shift to remote working is forcing managers to face a whole new set of challenges. 

How can you keep people connected and engaged when they're not together in the same office - or even the same time zone?

How do you track progress, monitor performance, and hold your staff accountable?

Apply these 7 simple strategies to take control and get comfortable with the new reality of virtual team management.

Occupational health and safety is top of mind for many people these days. In the midst of a global pandemic, keeping people safe and healthy on the job has a whole new importance.

But workplace health and safety goes far beyond protecting people from disease. It encompasses total wellness, from physical safety to mental health, emergency procedures, risk prevention, and safety training for staff.

Each year brings new regulations, new best practices, and new research on how to improve health and safety at work.

If you're looking to advance your OHS career, which areas should you focus on? Which health and safety manager skills are most important right now and over the long term?

We asked our own OHS instructor and industry expert, Kylie Boyd to weigh in. She teaches a Health and Safety Management course specifically designed to enhance leadership skills.

Find out which areas you should focus on to create a stronger safety culture and take your career to the next level.

With the growing shift to remote work, many project managers find themselves leading a group of people who are scattered across the country (or even the world).

There are some clear advantages to this new way of doing things. But online project management comes with a host of new challenges, too.

How can you maintain communication and engagement with remote team members? What are the best ways to run meetings and track projects online?

Basically: how can you adapt traditional project management techniques for the virtual world?

This post is here to help. We break down 7 simple ways to more effectively manage projects and people online.

Let's dive in.

The use of arbitration is on the rise. More and more employers require workers to sign mandatory arbitration agreements, keeping conflicts like employment discrimination and wrongful termination out of the courts. We're also seeing a major uptick in intellectual property and technology disputes handled through arbitration.

Kat Bellamano teaches the accredited Arbitration training course at Kompass Professional Development. She has been working in the field of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) for 17 years.

It could easily be argued that absolutely everyone can benefit from a quality community mental health course. With skyrocketing rates of depression, anxiety and suicide across the globe, it seems obvious that mental health education and resources should be a top priority for us all. 

Training session with the Red Cross on earthquake first aid and disaster response

By definition, emergencies are sudden and unexpected events we don’t usually see coming. No matter how prepared we are, it is impossible to control every variable and predict every outcome.

However, with the right tools and systems, it is certainly possible to identify likely threats and develop response strategies that minimize impact. 

This is the role of an emergency manager. Emergency managers analyze risk to forecast, prepare for, and recover from disaster situations. 

What’s the first thing you should do when someone is experiencing a panic attack? What if you suspect someone is at risk of harming themselves? How should you approach them? 

“HR today sits smack-dab in the middle of the most compelling competitive battleground in business, where companies deploy and fight over that most valuable of resources—workforce talent.”  - Harvard Business Review

Mediation is often described as both an art and a science. A science because the practice is governed by a clear framework, with concrete technical components and legal boundaries. 

An art because skilled mediators draw on a variety of less tangible assets, like intuition, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and a gift for cultivating trust amidst tension and hostility.