Breakthroughs of the 2022 WELCOA Summit

The 2022 WELCOA Summit in Chicago came and went, but the concepts and truths that emerged are still sticking with us.

This year we took attendees Onward with Breakthrough Solutions for workplace wellness. We learned all about navigating our toughest challenges during keynote sessions, dove deep into immediate solutions for business success and employee well-being in three all-day intensives, and brought together a vision for redesigning work for well-being in breakout sessions, panel discussions, and an abundance of networking time.

We welcomed hundreds of workplace wellness leaderships from all over the country for what felt like a family reunion of kindred minds. We laughed, we dreamed, we grew, and we had some major breakthrough moments.

The Takeaways

Designing Work for Well-Being

• Healthy workplaces are taking back the responsibility of designing workplace systems and environments that support well-being rather than putting demands on employees.
• Wellness is not something outside ourselves to be achieved, but rather something that lives within us that can be amplified or diminished by our environments.
• Caring for people’s well-being isn’t about getting them from point A to point B, it’s about looking at all the elements that can amplify or diminish well-being.
• Your job is to understand what barriers exist and how we help people overcome those barriers from the perspective that people already want to take care of themselves.
• Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging must be integrated into workplace well-being priorities.
• Healthy workplaces are inclusive of all races, abilities, socioeconomic statuses, access, and gender.
• All people deserve access to the tools, resources, environments, and supports that amplify their well-being at work and beyond.
• The status quo won’t work anymore. Employees are demanding better. See them, pay them, support them.

Caring for the Mind, Body, and Soul

• Everyone is deserving of self-care and the space to take an interest in their own lives.
• The presenting problems like stress, burnout, quiet-quitting, and mental health disorders are all a symptom of a greater problem.
• The most important question to ask people is, “how are you?”
• Mental health stigma must be eradicated from the workplace in order to achieve safety.
• Your time is precious like diamonds, not infinite like sand. How you spend it makes a world of difference to your well-being.
• In order to make physical health work, we have to get back to basic human needs. When our basic human needs are met, we are more likely to change behavior in a positive direction.

The New Leader

• An opportunity mindset and forward-thinking are essential.
• An “it starts with me“ mentality is key to evolving the standard for well-being in the workplace.
• Leadership in the workplace starts in the home.
• Influence requires knowledge, passion, and authenticity.
• Relational communication is more powerful than transactional communication.
• Leaders earn the right to talk about well-being solutions AFTER they’ve deeply evaluated the needs of the people they serve.

Leveraging Technology

• Data can show you your gaps, what you do with that data makes the real difference.
• Measuring the well-being of the organization/business is just as important as measuring the well-being of individuals.
• The WELCOA Checklist is the HRA for businesses.
• A suite of wellness services is more impactful than a one size fits all program.

The Highlights

The People

It wouldn’t be a WELCOA Summit without the incredible people that are out in the world doing the work.

This conference is just the beginning. We anticipate that everyone who attended has walked away, ready to make their mark on the future of workplace well-being and the way we take care of all working people.

If you missed out on this game-changing event this year, we hope that you join us in 2023 so we can help support your success and take you to the next level.