2026 WWPA Hui - Christchurch

Connect, be inspired, and learn alongside like-minded wellbeing professionals! Following the success of our inaugural conference and hui in 2025, WWPA is excited to bring you two regional events across Auckland and Christchurch in 2026.

This pivotal event is designed for you if you:

• Hold the reins of professional responsibility for workplace wellbeing

• Are driven to connect, collaborate, and learn from an thriving community of practice

• Seek to deepen your understanding of both the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ behind effective wellbeing strategies

• Are eager to contribute your voice and vision to sculpting the wellbeing profession's future.
  

Agenda

9.00 Registration and Coffee

9.30 Karakia and welcome from WWPA

Chris Hewitt, Board Member, WWPA; Manager - Customer Success, TELUS Health New Zealand

9.40 Capability, Connection, Collaboration: Our Roadmap to a Thriving Profession

Almost 18 months after our establishment, the WWPA Board have worked hard to help develop a strategy for the ongoing development and advancement of our profession. We open the conference by taking you through our strategic roadmap for the next two years, along with explaining how you can contribute to the growth of workplace wellbeing practice in Aotearoa.

10.20 The Architecture of Flourishing: Designing the Conditions for Sustainable Well-being 

Many well-being interventions work—but their benefits often fade once the programme ends. This keynote explores a shift from thinking like a florist, delivering practices that can brighten people's lives, to thinking like a gardener, cultivating conditions in which flourishing can take root and sustain itself. Drawing on the Architecture of Flourishing, it explores how positive change can become self-reinforcing across the different layers of our lives, and introduces five practical principles for designing conditions that help it do so. 

Reuben Rusk, Founding Director, Mindquip

11.10 Morning break

11.30  What executive leaders are looking for and how to pitch when time is limited

You may have compelling wellbeing data, a strong business case, and clear evidence of workforce needs. Yet securing leadership attention and investment can still be challenging.

In this practical and engaging session, executive leader Julie Cameron will share insights gained from more than 20 years leading large-scale health and service operations across Aotearoa. Drawing on her experience leading complex health services, government partnerships, and multidisciplinary workforces, Julie will provide an executive perspective on how senior leaders evaluate competing priorities and decide where to invest.

Julie Cameron  

12.15 Case study: Wellbeing in practice

University of Canterbury/Te Whare Wānanga of Waitaha' s Strategic Vision - Tangata Tū, Tangata Ora | Engaged, Empowered, Making a Difference 2020–2030, recognises that empowered and effective staff are key to our success. Building on the strong foundations of our previous wellbeing approaches which focused on minimising harm and meeting wellbeing needs, our emphasis is shifting towards proactive wellbeing, empowerment and building the skills that strengthen our collective capability. This case study shares the story of moving from aspirations to action, including the successes, struggles and learnings along the way, as we work to embed wellbeing into practice for staff at UC.

Megan Martin, Capability & Wellbeing Advisor, University of Canterbury

12.45 Lunch

1.45 Same Workplace, Different Risk: Personalising Psychosocial Intervention at Scale

The psychosocial risk model has given us a shared language for hazards such as workload, autonomy, role clarity and support. Yet it carries a quiet assumption that often goes unchallenged and may result in organisations overlooking those most at risk.

Give one employee a particular workload and they thrive. Give the same workload to another and you've handed them chaos. The hazard hasn't changed, but the risk has.

Drawing on 26 years of experience delivering workplace wellbeing and engagement programmes to some of New Zealand's leading organisations, Brad Norris will explore a common blind spot in psychosocial risk management, why it exists, and what becomes possible when organisations move beyond designing interventions for the "average" employee.

Key takeaways:

• Where the psychosocial risk model has a blind spot

• Why identical conditions can produce very different levels of risk

• How measurement and intervention can happen at the same time

Brad Norris, Synergy Health

2.15 Understanding Psychosocial Risk: From Guidance to Practice

Psychosocial risk management has rapidly emerged as a key component of workplace health, safety and wellbeing. Yet many organisations continue to grapple with what good practice looks like and how to translate guidance into meaningful action.

This session will provide an overview of the key concepts underpinning psychosocial risk management, drawing on ISO 45003:2021, Psychological health and safety at work — Guidelines for managing psychosocial risks, WorkSafe New Zealand guidance, and emerging best practice. Facilitators will explore common psychosocial hazards, risk assessment approaches, organisational responsibilities, and the role wellbeing professionals can play in creating psychologically healthy workplaces.

The session will set the scene for the afternoon masterclass workshop and provide participants with a practical framework for approaching psychosocial risk within their own organisations.

Sally Marr, Development and Delivery Lead, Psychosocial Risk, Health NZ

2.45 Afternoon Break

3.00 Masterclass Workshop: Team-Based Psychosocial Risk Assessment in Practice

Moving from awareness to action, this interactive masterclass will introduce a practical card-sort methodology for identifying and assessing psychosocial risks within teams.

Participants will experience a facilitated psychosocial risk assessment process using a structured card-sort approach that encourages meaningful discussion, helps surface workplace hazards, and supports teams to identify priorities and control measures. The workshop will demonstrate how organisations can engage workers in psychosocial risk assessment in a practical, collaborative and scalable way.

Delegates will leave with ideas, tools and techniques that can be adapted for use within their own workplaces, regardless of organisational size or sector.

Terry Buckingham, Chair, WWPA; & Regional Manager Occupational Health, Health New Zealand

4.00 Closing remarks and end of hui