Virtual · April 22–23, 2026
Better Workplace Conference 2026
Wellbeing as a Strategy: Your Roadmap for Success
Reimagine the Future of Work
Canadian workplaces are at a defining moment. Leaders face mounting challenges: an economy demanding more with less, burnout that is rarely just individual and often structural, leadership gaps in distributed teams, rising mental health concerns, and technology that’s transforming work faster than organizations can adapt.
The way we work has fundamentally changed—and traditional wellness programs fail because they treat symptoms, not systems.
BWC 2026 is the national platform where wellness and organizational effectiveness intersect to create resilience and results. This isn’t about perks. It’s about designing a future with a new mindset: advancing wellbeing as a strategic lever for success by embedding it into work design, culture, and leadership.
What You’ll Experience
This virtual event is designed to help you tackle your most urgent workplace challenges, offering insights, strategies, and practical tools to build resilient, healthy and high-performing organizations. Access your roadmap to transformation through:
- Exclusive research insights: Hear from experts on the latest research defining today’s workplace.
- Dynamic keynotes and lived experience spotlights: Learn from trailblazing leaders and employees whose stories challenge conventional thinking and inspire practical approaches you can bring back to your organization.
- Hands-on collaborative sessions: Participate in interactive sessions that go beyond theory to help you build frameworks, test ideas, and leave with tools you can apply immediately.
- Peer showcases and networking: Connect with leaders from across sectors to share what’s working, what’s next, and how to navigate common challenges.
- Pre-event engagement: The learning starts before the conference! Join us for thought-provoking webinars and timely conversations that spark ideas, offer fresh perspectives, and set the stage for deeper engagement during the main event.
Expect evidence-based insights, real-world case studies, and useful tools to embed wellbeing into your organizational strategy.
Conference Themes
Each session is anchored in one of four interconnected themes that address today’s biggest challenges and point toward solutions:
| From work design to measurable impact | Leading in flexible and distributed work models | Mental health and wellbeing | Technology, AI, and the human-centred future of work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wellbeing starts with how work is designed. This track combines practical strategies for reducing systemic strain with evidence-based tools to measure progress and make wellbeing a strategic lever for organizational success. | Flexibility is here to stay, but culture, belonging, and wellness suffer without strong leadership and intentional design. This track equips leaders to close gaps and create strong, connected teams. | Wellbeing is multidimensional, spanning mental health, psychological safety, diversity, equity, inclusion, and financial security. This track explores practical strategies and inclusive policies that reduce risk, strengthen resilience, and create cultures where people can thrive. | Technology is transforming work at breakneck speed. This track helps leaders balance innovation with humanity, leveraging tech to support wellbeing interventions, predict and prevent strain, and prepare organizations for future capability needs. |
What’s New This Year
The 2026 Better Workplace Conference is evolving, with a refreshed look and a sharper focus. This year’s program is designed for impact: two days of dynamic sessions built around core themes that deliver clear, actionable insights to help you embed wellbeing into your organizational strategy and create a roadmap for lasting change.
We’re also debuting a new name. While the conference may look different, our legacy remains the same. For more than a decade, we’ve led this national flagship conference with the expertise and experience needed to deliver a proven, high-impact event.
Who Should Attend
This event is designed for:
- HR and people leaders shaping culture and wellbeing strategies;
- executives and senior leaders driving organizational performance and resilience;
- operations and strategy leaders focused on workforce effectiveness;
- innovators and researchers exploring systemic solutions for workplace health.
Whether you’re driving implementation or shaping strategy, BWC 2026 will equip you to lead with purpose, impact, and confidence.
Agenda
Please note: All agenda times are in Eastern Standard Time. See what time that is for you.
The Reset
11:00 am
Join us as we open the conference with a holistic understanding of wellness—one that recognizes the interconnected roles of mental and emotional wellbeing, financial health, social connection, community, and work–life balance. We’ll acknowledge how inclusion and belonging shape every aspect of the wellness journey and why no single path works for everyone. This opening moment will ground us in a shared understanding: that when employees feel supported, valued, and able to show up as their full selves, organizations see measurable gains in engagement, productivity, and performance.
Speaker
Alana Painter
Director, Human Capital, Signal49 Research
11:15 am
Inspirational keynote
Canadian workplaces are at a tipping point. Burnout, leadership gaps, and rapid technological disruption have exposed structural flaws in work design. These challenges aren’t about individual resilience—they’re rooted in systems that no longer fit today’s realities. This keynote will reframe wellbeing as a strategic lever for organizational success. We’ll explore why traditional programs fail, the evidence behind systemic burnout, and the critical shift from perks to integrated systems built on work design, culture, and leadership.
Participants will learn how to:
- Recognize structural drivers of burnout and their business impact.
- Understand why wellbeing must move from programs to systems.
- Identify foundational steps to redesign work for resilience.
Moderator
Alana Painter
Director, Human Capital, Signal49 Research
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Raj Choudhury
Professor of Organisational Behaviour, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
12:00 pm
Break
12:15 pm
Invisible work—tasks that keep teams running, but rarely show up in role descriptions or performance reviews—disproportionately falls on women, caregivers, and marginalized employees, accelerating burnout and inequity.
Join us for a lived-experience spotlight followed by an expert-led session that will share practical ways organizations can identify, surface, and redistribute this hidden workload through intentional operating-model changes. Participants will look at real examples and walk away with concrete tools to rebalance responsibility, reduce strain, and make fairness measurable over time.
Trauma shows up differently across identities, roles, and lived experiences, and workplaces increasingly face situations where employees carry complex emotional and psychological burdens. When policies don’t reflect this reality, they can unintentionally create further harm. This session will help HR leaders embed trauma-informed principles that honour diverse experiences, strengthen psychological safety, and create more equitable, responsive systems.
Participants will learn how to:
- Identify policy gaps that disproportionately impact marginalized groups.
- Guide and support managers through sensitive, high-stakes conversations.
- Embed consistent, trauma-informed team practices into their own toolkits.
High performers often mask early signs of strain, carrying hidden workloads that quietly escalate into burnout and costly turnover. While these risks undermine performance, many organizations lack the structures, policies, or analytics needed to identify issues before they become crises. This session will explore the systemic drivers that place disproportionate pressure on top talent and highlight strategic approaches that protect performance without reinforcing overextension.
Participants will learn how to:
- Identify organizational and policy blind spots that contribute to burnout in highperforming talent.
- Use workforce insights and risk indicators to detect strain earlier and more accurately.
- Implement systemic, sustainable interventions that preserve both wellbeing and performance.
1:15 pm
Interactive Break
1:45 pm
Most leaders agree that employee wellbeing matters, but translating that belief into sustained investment requires credible evidence. Too often, wellbeing efforts stall because metrics are unclear or disconnected from business priorities, making it difficult to make the case for investment. This expert-led fireside chat will focus on moving beyond often-unreliable metrics and toward decision-grade data that leaders can trust.
Participants will learn how to:
- Identify meaningful wellbeing KPIs linked directly to productivity, risk, and retention.
- Align stakeholders and governance to sustain measurement and accountability over time.
- Translate wellbeing data into clear, evidence‑based business cases that drive executive buy‑in and action.
2:15 pm
Break
2:30 pm
Burnout and mental strain are often connected to the structure of work itself. To address this, mental health must be considered within daily tasks. This expert-led workshop-style session will explore how workflows can be redesigned to include mental health supports within the architecture of work, thereby reducing strain and enabling recovery.
Participants will learn how to integrate micro‑recovery moments, support pathways, and lightweight measures of impact into daily work, and will leave with practical tools and a clear approach to redesigning work that sustains performance while protecting mental health.
Speaker
Michael Cooper
Vice-President, Data and Partnerships Mental Health Research Canada (MHRC)
Modern work culture often glorifies overload, emphasizing packed calendars and fatigue as signs of success: a badge of honour that signals commitment and value. Organizations struggle to balance speed with sustainability, creating operational friction and unintended burnout. In this fireside chat, experts will unpack the hidden costs of the hustle and introduce approaches to redesigning work that realign processes with realistic expectations and output.
Participants will learn how to:
- Map bottlenecks and convert activity metrics into outcome KPIs.
- Redesign workflows to increase output without increasing strain.
- Apply a starter set of performance measures that reinforce a sustainable pace.
Speakers
Chantaie Allick
Co-Founder, ReWork
Natasha Singh
Co-Founder, ReWork
Financial stress and income insecurity are among the most persistent—and least visible—drivers of employee mental health strain. When people are worried about making ends meet, managing debt, or navigating unpredictable costs, the result is often exhaustion, anxiety, and reduced cognitive bandwidth at work.
In this session, employees and employers will explore how financial insecurity can show up as disengagement, absenteeism, and lower productivity. Participants will gain insight into both the employee experience and the organizational impact, and learn practical ways to support financial wellbeing and create a more stable, focused, and engaged workforce.
3:15 pm
Break
3:30 pm
Distributed work can fracture team cohesion, often leaving employees feeling disconnected and disengaged. Leaders need to embrace intentional practices to rebuild trust and belonging. This lab will explore how rituals and rhythms can restore connection and psychological safety in dispersed, hybrid or remote work models.
- Participants will learn how to:
- Inventory current rituals and identify gaps in connection.
- Prototype low-cost, high-impact team rhythms.
- Launch a pilot plan and measure engagement effects.
The Roadmap
11:00 am
Join us to reflect on the insights, conversations, and moments that shaped yesterday’s sessions as we open day two of the conference. Together, we’ll revisit the key themes and learnings that brought us to this point, grounding ourselves in the collective progress we’ve made. From that reflection, we’ll shift our attention to today’s intention—a day designed to synthesize ideas, deepen connection, and chart forwardlooking action. This opening session will help us recentre, reenergize, and prepare for a meaningful close to our shared experience.
Speaker
Alana Painter
Director, Human Capital, Signal49 Research
11:15 am
Technology is changing work faster than most people can keep up with—and the results are starting to show. AI is reshaping roles, expectations, and job security, while constant change leaves many employees feeling uncertain, stretched, and anxious about what comes next. This keynote will focus on the human side of what’s coming: how leaders can prepare their people, protect wellbeing, and build confidence as work continues to evolve. Drawing on insights from researchers, innovators, and organizations already navigating this shift, attendees will explore how leading employers are spotting early signals of change, anticipating emerging pressures on people and skills, and acting sooner—so they’re not caught off-guard by the future of work, but actively preparing for it.
12:00 pm
Break
12:15 pm
The rapid shift to remote and hybrid work has led many organizations to adopt monitoring tools that unintentionally undermine trust, autonomy, and workplace culture. As leaders, the challenge is no longer about visibility—it’s about accountability and meaningful oversight. This session will explore how managers can move from activity-based oversight to outcome-driven leadership that supports both performance and engagement. Participants will learn from expert practitioners how to define clear outcome agreements, replace monitoring with meaningful, results-focused check-ins, and apply trust-building techniques that strengthen accountability while sustaining a healthy, high-performing culture.
Reliance on unwritten expectations, complex processes, and cognitive overload limit both performance and wellbeing and unintentionally exclude neurodivergent employees. This interactive lab will invite leaders to rethink how work is designed, not how people adapt. Participants will explore practical ways to redesign workflows, tools, and supports to reduce cognitive load and better enable diverse thinkers. Using a structured redesign canvas, attendees will learn how to create effective job aids and identify measures that link cognitive inclusion to improved engagement, performance, and outcomes.
AI is reshaping jobs faster than most organizations can redesign roles or develop the skills needed to keep pace. This session will equip leaders with practical, role‑based playbooks to help employees adapt, grow, and thrive in an AI‑integrated workforce.
At this hands-on workshop-style session, participants will learn how to map evolving role pathways, identify critical capability gaps, and launch focused learning sprints that deliver real impact. The session will also highlight how to embed continuous capability building into workforce planning, so upskilling becomes a sustainable, strategic advantage, rather than a one‑time initiative.
1:15 pm
Break
1:30 pm
Session description coming soon.
2:15 pm
Interactive Break
2:45 pm
People analytics has the potential to unlock powerful insights that improve performance, equity, and decision‑making. But without intentional, ethical design, it can quickly erode trust and compromise privacy. This expert-led session will explore how organizations can build people analytics practices that are transparent, responsible, and aligned with organizational values. Participants will examine practical approaches to drafting responsible analytics policies, establishing clear guardrails for ethical data use, and engaging employees with openness and clarity about how data is collected and applied. Attendees will leave with concrete tools to balance insight with trust, ensuring people analytics strengthens—rather than undermines—culture and accountability.
Case Study + Roundtable/fireside chat/open forum
As organizations increasingly rely on ESG commitments to drive long‑term performance and accountability, employee wellbeing has become a critical foundation for sustaining a healthy, equitable, and resilient workforce. This session will equip participants with strategies to position wellbeing as a core component of ESG, sustainability, and DEI goals. The discussion will highlight actionable approaches to designing, aligning, and measuring wellbeing initiatives that create meaningful social and business impact.
As AI tools become more integrated into HR, employee experience, and wellbeing initiatives, leaders are increasingly responsible for asking the right questions and recognizing the risks these technologies can introduce. This fast-paced session will give HR leaders a practical, non-technical look at how AI can influence wellbeing, equity, and trust across the employee lifecycle. Learn where bias most commonly enters AI-powered HR tools, how to ask the right questions of vendors and internal partners, and what checkpoints help ensure responsible, people-first implementation. Participants will walk away with a simple set of leadership practices and conversation guides that can help strengthen fairness, transparency, and inclusion as AI becomes embedded in HR operations—without needing to be an AI expert. This session is perfect for HR leaders who want to champion human-centred innovation while protecting what matters most: people.
3:45 pm
Break
4:00 pm
Across many organizations, employee wellbeing has long been managed separately from DEI, health and safety, and total rewards. But growing concern about fragmented and inefficient approaches is prompting change. As employers begin testing more integrated models, they’re seeing real benefits—alongside understandable unease. Those benefits include stronger alignment and efficiency, and are paired with concerns about voice and role identity across different wellbeing disciplines. This fireside conversation will explore what organizations are learning as these silos shift and how leaders can bring diverse perspectives together around a shared wellbeing strategy without losing the expertise that makes each function essential.
Speakers
Chantaie Allick
Co-Founder, ReWork
Dr. Raj Choudhury
Professor of Organisational Behaviour, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Michael Cooper
Vice-President, Data and Partnerships Mental Health Research Canada (MHRC)
Alana Painter
Alana Painter, Director, Human Capital, Signal49 Research
Natasha Singh
Co-Founder, ReWork
Testimonials
Past Event
Previous conference highlights:
The 29th annual Better Workplace Conference will address emerging workplace challenges, such as polarization and technology-induced burnout, and explore how to meet the diverse needs and requirements of today’s workforce.
464
Past Attendees
4.5/5
Overall satisfaction
Attendees by job function
Attendees by job title
Some noteworthy speakers from our previous conference
Dr. Shimi Kang
Leading expert in change, leadership, innovation, and wellness
Lee Rubin
Team-building expert
Dr. Jody Carrington
Psychologist, human connection expert, and best-selling author
Register
Secure your spot and be part of the movement to build better workplaces where inclusion, wellbeing, and resilience are not just goals, but guiding principles.
$299
$225
(Early bird rate available until March 6, 2026.)
Signal49 Research delivers insights that help Canadians build a stronger future. Proceeds from this event are invested back into producing and disseminating our evidence-based research.
Sponsors
Is your organization interested in becoming a sponsor? Learn more about our sponsorship packages and contact us to hear more about the opportunities and benefits of sponsoring a Signal49 Research event.
