Designing sustainable work & courageous cultures (Faculty/Staff)

In today’s academic and institutional environments, the pressure to do more with less is constant. Faculty, staff, and leaders are navigating increasing complexity, competing demands, and evolving expectations around wellbeing, collaboration, and performance. This two-part series is designed to support a shift from reactive, individual-level coping toward more intentional, systems-aware ways of working and leading. 
Together, these sessions explore how sustainable work is shaped not only by how roles are designed, but also by how we communicate within them. Participants will first examine burnout through the lens of job design and organizational systems, then build the skills needed to engage in courageous, values-aligned conversations that support healthier, more effective working environments. 
Audience: All faculty and staff at UBC Vancouver and Okanagan.  While particularly relevant for faculty and faculty leaders, all staff and faculty are welcome to attend. 
Location: Zoom
Important Notes: 

Each session stands on its own, but together they offer a powerful foundation for cultivating more sustainable, human-centered, and courageous workplace cultures. 
If you can only attend one session you are still welcome to enroll; you will get a lot of value from attending a single session.  
There will be optional breakout room activities. 
The session will not be recorded, but the slides will be shared. 
Closed captioning can be enabled.  

Workshop 1: Sustainable job design and burnout prevention 
Date: Tuesday, May 19, 2026 
Time: 11 am–12:15 pm  
Burnout is often mischaracterized as an individual “resilience failure” and solutions often focus on strengthening the individual. However, research consistently shows that burnout is an occupational phenomenon rooted in job design and marked by job demands like excessive workload. To create meaningful change, we must look beyond individual solutions and combine them with greater awareness about how we engage with the systems we inhabit.  
In this practical, research-based workshop, we move past surface-level advice and invite participants to reflect on their relationship with exhaustion, burnout, and recovery. Participants will leave reminded of their own agency, with an invitation to relate to their job demands more consciously, and with permission to cultivate the inner resources that are essential for work and life. 
Workshop 2: Courageous conversations to support sustainable work 
Date: Tuesday, May 26, 2026 
Time: 11 am–12:15 pm 
Building on the foundation of sustainable work, this session focuses on the relational side of workplace culture: how we communicate, advocate, and navigate tension in professional environments.  
Using principles from Nonviolent Communication (NVC), participants will learn how to approach challenging conversations with greater clarity, confidence, and empathy. In academic and leadership settings, where competing priorities and power dynamics can make speaking up feel difficult, developing these skills is essential. 
This session will explore what gets in the way of honest dialogue, and offer practical tools to express needs, share feedback, and engage in meaningful conversations that strengthen trust rather than erode it. Participants will practice reframing difficult interactions and learn how to create conditions where their perspectives can be heard and understood. 
Participants will leave with concrete strategies and a stronger sense of psychological permission to speak up in ways that are both effective and values-aligned.  
Your facilitator: 
Dr. Ellen Choi (she/her) is an Associate Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson). She received her PhD at the Ivey School of Business and her Masters degree at the London School of Economics. Her research examines employee mental health and well-being where she studies how mindfulness, self-compassion, and authenticity are related to how people feel and behave at work. She teaches organizational behaviour, which covers topics such as decision making, team effectiveness, and leadership. She is also an executive coach, meditation instructor, yoga teacher and co-founder of www.thefacilitatorstore.com, which offers training and coaching to promote workplace well-being. 
If you have any questions, please email [email protected].