LiveWorkPlay Winter Family Gathering Includes Surprise Announcement of EOON Award!

Moving our family gathering events (normally these are sit down dinners at St. Anthony’s Banquet Hall) online has presented many challenges and opportunities. Over the past year we have been learning to ensure we have music and laughter built in to the mix, and based on the 100% positive feedback from our March 5th live poll, we are succeeding! Another issue with online events has been the giving (we like to do a lot of that, and we plan to continue at Make A Buzz Ottawa on May 6) and receiving of awards – including finding ways to pull off a good surprise! Well, the LiveWorkPlay community was both surprised and honoured to receive the Employment Ontario Ottawa Network Investing in your Workplace Award 2020! During the Friday night event, co-hosts Keenan Wellar and Brent Manuel were delivering The LiveWorkPlay News when Brent interrupted with “breaking news” and here is what happened next! (Below the video you will find the text from Kate’s speech).

Thanks Mayor Watson, I want to take this opportunity to extend a big congratulations to the entire team on the occasion of LiveWorkPlay being one of only two recipients of the 2020 Employment Ontario Ottawa Network’s Investing in your Workplace Award. Thanks to Canada Ontario Job Grant funds, LiveWorkPlay was able to offer significant training to the staff team through 2020-2021.

As a member of the LiveWorkPlay board of directors and chair of the governance committee, I know the board was very impressed with the efforts of our hardworking staff to continue their learning throughout the pandemic. This includes not only completing their Enhancing Leadership Capacity module but being near the finish line with Collaborative Performance Management – these are challenging leading-edge courses being delivered by David Chalmers at Nexus Human Capital, and we want to thank David as well, for making the transition to online learning.

This award from the Employment Ontario Ottawa Network recognizes employers who provide quality formal training to support the growth of their staff as individuals and as a team, and I wanted everyone to know that the Investing in your Workplace Award is not just for charities, it is open to every type of organization. For example, the only other recipient of the 2020 Investing in your Workplace Award was M-CON, a 50 million dollar construction company based in Carp with over 430 employees! Other nominees included highly regarded and well-known businesses like Lee Valley Tools and Mill Street Brew Pub, so this is truly a great honour, and we should all be proud to be involved with an organization that makes these types of investments in their people.