Green Guide for Communicators

Confused about the difference between Social Responsibility, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Sustainability? Don’t know what the ISO 26000 is? Want to help your business go green but are afraid of being accused of green washing?

Two of my colleagues on the International Association of Business Communicators Social Responsibility Committee have put together this excellent guide. Useful for anyone interested in the topic, it also has some local Toronto resources that you might want to check out.

Mental Health in the Workplace: Let’s Talk About It

A twitter acquaintance has recently come out online about his experience with depression, connecting his business and personal personas and bravely allowing his business acquaintances to learn about his mental health challenges. In doing so, he inspired this latest blog post.

This past fall, I attended the IAPA (Industrial Accident Prevention Association) conference. At the time, I was writing a feature story about employment challenges for people with mental health problems for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health’s CrossCurrents. I talked to numerous people for whom “coming out” in the work place was an extremely difficult decision due to the stigma they realistically feared facing.

It was an exciting day, therefore, when for the very first time at the IAPA conference, mental health was presented as a workplace safety issue. Furthermore, outgoing CEO Maureen Shaw opened the conference saying that mental health needs to be considered as part of overall social responsibility. Read the rest of this entry »