About Us

Our core values

Help people feel good about themselves

People who feel happy and confident are more likely to try new things. They are more likely to form effective teams. They are better equipped to face challenges. The key to being a great manager is to help people feel good about themselves.

Believe the best and trust others

When we get annoyed with people for being ‘stupid’ or ‘slow’, we are in fact getting annoyed with our own inability to pass on information easily. Recognising our own shortcomings, we should trust that people always do the best they can. ‘Mental blocks’ offer us the opportunity to find new ways to overcome them.

Create customer delight

We aim not just to give ‘customer satisfaction’, but to delight customers and exceed expectations with every interaction.

Celebrate mistakes

We’re conditioned from an early age to scold or punish mistakes. However, mistakes are the greatest way of learning! Training and managing should encourage people to try something new. The best way to be bold is to minimise fear of failure and to celebrate mistakes.

Make the world a better place

As a B Corp, we are committed to doing good and putting our purpose above profit.

We donate 4% of our profit to charity (the charities receiving this donation are chosen by staff).

We offer free places for NHS staff on certain courses — since 2020, over 1,200 staff have attended our sessions, representing over £200k of course fees.

We have also signed up to Feefo's 'Treefo' scheme, with a tree planted for every review left for us by our clients. We have a minimum commitment of 50 trees per month. These trees are planted in a sustainable way across the world through Feefo's partner, Ecologi.

We also offer discounted rates for charities and the public sector for all of our courses and services.

Create change, be innovative and creative

Innovation has been at the heart of Happy since it was founded. Happy was conceived as a ground-breaking alternative to the often dour, technocratic IT skills training market of the late 1980s — and we have always understood that our capacity to challenge the norm, develop new ideas and make change happen is central to what makes us Happy.

All of our values are designed to encourage and support the process of revaluation, creative solution making and implementing new ideas across the organisation.

Be inclusive of all and actively put inclusivity at the heart of every decision

It is everyone's responsibility at Happy to ensure inclusiveness and belonging.

To promote inclusivity, we have published the Happy Cultural Planner for the last 30 years. It is available to download and print for free on our Resources page. As well as an indicator of upcoming holidays (including those which may prevent people attending your events), it’s a handy way to plan for the upcoming year.

We also want to develop future leaders from less represented backgrounds. We have created a Brave Leadership Programme for women, and Level 3 and Level 5 Global Majority Empowerment Apprenticeship Programmes.