Helping You Move Towards Your Optimal Work Life
Join us to start moving towards an Optimal Work Life - for yourself, your team, and your organization.
You can become a member of the OWL Project by joining one of the three Member Circles. See below for information about the Circles.
No one ought to spend his or her time at work “churning and burning” - with a work life bereft of purposeful engagement, inspired performance, imaginative experimentation, authentic growth, and holistic wellbeing. Everyone deserves a work life imbued with a sense of meaning and wellbeing - an optimal work life.
By joining OWL, you are contributing to a body of knowledge that will help people live their work lives truly, fully, and wisely.
3 Member Circles at OWL
Researchers
The Researcher Circle comprises researchers from universities around the world whose scholarly work informs the OWL principles. To be a part of OWL, click here.
Leaders
The Leader Circle comprises leaders in private and public sector organizations with a deep interest in and a track record of championing the quality of work life for their employees. Members of this circle are by invitation only.
Professionals
The Professional Circle comprises professionals across sectors, industries, occupations, and levels who are interested in understanding and enhancing their own work lives towards an optimal experience. To be a part of OWL, click here.
“The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry about work”.
- Robert Frost
OWL HOOT:
“The Swedish Tradition That can Make you Happier at Work,” BBC 20 Feb, 2022
This BBC worklife article discusses the current and possibly outdated stigma of leaving a job that you are passionate about for a less-fulfilling job with more competitive pay.
“The Taboo of Selling-out for a Better Paying job“
Fika, the important social function in Swedish work culture which is believed to improve productivity and enhance overall wellbeing. This BBC reel looks into this Swedish tradition further.
For a broader and deeper look into understanding and designing optimal work lives, join OWL
What is OWL all about?
OWL stands for Optimal Work Life.
Our quest in the OWL Project is to discover a set of principles and develop a framework to guide individuals and organizations in creating the conditions necessary for all those who work to have a work life imbued with a sense of meaning and well-being.
As part of this program of research, our scholarly inquiries address notions of authenticity, meaningfulness, callings, wisdom, sustainability, aesthetics, thriving, generosity, career success, humour, mindfulness, resilience, and well-being at work.
Using the findings from our research, we aim to help all those who work move towards an optimal work life..
What are the activities at OWL?
OWL Hoots – Notifications by and for OWL members about news items pertaining to enhancing the quality of work life.
OWL InSights – Key takeaways from research studies conducted by members of the Researcher Circle and presented to members of the Leader Circle and Professional Circle for their feedback and use.
OWL Conferences – An annual gathering of OWL members to discuss the findings of completed studies, share key takeaways, highlight unanswered questions and emerging issues, and generate ideas for the next set of research projects.
OWL Scorecard - A scoring tool to help organizations assess the extent to which their employees rate their work lives as being optimal.
OWL Stories – Posts (1-minute videos) by and for OWL members describing practices they engage in, experiences they have had, or insights they have gleaned that enhance the quality of work life.
OWL Index – An annual survey of Canadians to explore the extent to which they consider their work lives to be optimal and the factors that have an impact.
Ask OWL – A discussion forum (using SLACK) for OWL members to raise questions, make observations, share insights, etc. about an optimal work life.
“… and the song I came to sing remains unsung, for I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument ...”
— Rabindranath Tagore
Why do we need OWL?
Research has shown that only a small minority of workers worldwide experience an optimal work life. What can we glean from the ways of being and doing from these fortunate few to guide the rest of the working population?
While there is no shortage of advice out there on all aspects of work life, the sheer volume of tips, suggestions, and exhortations can be quite overwhelming; plus, they are mostly fragmented, frequently contradictory, and often unwieldy.
What is needed is a set of core principles distilled from rigorous research, woven together into a reasonably coherent whole, and offered as a somewhat malleable framework that each of us can adapt to our own unique and personal realities and aspirations - the OWL Project in a nutshell.
Who are the members of OWL?
At OWL, we are a community of scholars, organizational leaders, and professionals from around the world working collaboratively on different projects to help people move towards an optimal work life. There are three Circles of members: the Researcher Circle, the Leader Circle and the Professional Circle.
How does OWL work?
At OWL, the three Circles of members (Researcher, Leader & Professional) come together to guide the overall program of research and learn from the findings. The research per se is undertaken by the members of the Researcher Circle in their role as professors, post-docs, and doctoral students at universities around the world. The members of the Leader Circle serve as a sounding board for the different research projects undertaken by the researchers. The members of the Professional Circle are the end users of the ideas and suggestions that emerge from the different research projects at OWL and offer feedback from their experiences.
”Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing it is not fish they are after”.
- Henry David Thoreau
OWL Stories
Posts (1-minute videos) by and for OWL members describing practices they engage in, experiences they have had, or insights they have gleaned that enhance the quality of work life.
“Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.’’ – Albert Camus
Have a great idea?
We’d love to hear your thoughts. Simply fill out this form and send it our way.