happy people

Five Good News Stories From the Last Month (July 2020 Edition)

We’re currently enduring the worst public health pandemic in 100 years. Life has already undergone dramatic change and a return to “normal” is still a long way off. But despite seeming to move from one cataclysm to another in recent months and years, we live in profoundly progressive times. Modern humans are capable of amazing things. Here are five good news stories to provide respite from the doom and gloom of a regular news bulletin.

6 Easy-to-Use Services That Will Improve Your Work-From-Home Experience

People making the transition into working remotely will be pleased to know the technology for seamless remote working is readily available. You’re probably familiar with a number of leading services already, as even companies that don’t promote flexible working models have augmented their workspaces with various apps. In this blog Billy explores 6 easy-to-use services that will improve your remote working experience, that you may not have heard of.

4 Good News Stories From June 2020

We’re currently enduring the worst public health pandemic in 100 years. Life has already undergone dramatic change and a return to “normal” is still a long way off. But despite seeming to move from one cataclysm to another in recent months and years, we live in profoundly progressive times. Modern humans are capable of amazing things. Here are four good news stories to provide respite from the doom and gloom of a regular news bulletin.

New Features Added to Office 365 in July 2020

New features are regularly added to Microsoft Office 365’s assorted apps to improve user experience. The updates are so frequent that even regular 365 users won’t necessarily be up to date with all the new additions. In June 2020, some of these new features included allowing users to make private annotations on Word files in MS OneDrive and to share links to specific slides in PowerPoint presentations. Learn more about these and other newly added features in this blog.

WorldBlu CEO Traci Fenton Underlines the Three Things Required to Create a Freedom-Centred Culture

WorldBlu CEO Traci Fenton believes we’re all meant to live our fullest potential. Through WorldBlu, Traci’s spent the last two decades working with clients in 80 countries, teaching them freedom at work. In this short video from the 2019 Happy Workplaces Conference Traci explains that a freedom-centred mindset is essential for building a freedom-centred culture. "The root issue that stops world-class cultures from happening is fear. It’s the number one thing," she says.

Why Happy's Henry Stewart Stopped Making Leadership Decisions

Over the last couple of years, Happy has undergone a transformation. Happy was losing a lot of money a couple of years ago, but thanks to the transformation the London training company went from £185k loss to £166k profit in the space of one year. In this short video from the 2019 Happy Workplaces Conference, Chief Happiness Officer Henry Stewart explains that he took inspiration from David Marquet, a leadership expert and former commander of the nuclear-powered submarine, USS Santa Fe. Marquet says, “If you want your people to think, don’t give instructions, give intent.” Henry followed suit. “It isn’t enough to not be the tyrant; you have to step out,” he says.

10 Great Examples From Some of the Most Democratic Workplaces on the Planet

WorldBlu’s freedom at work model directly opposes fear-based work cultures. There are three crucial components to the freedom-centred approach. The first is a freedom-centred mindset. The second is freedom-centred leadership—leaders with a fear-based mindset create command and control management structures. To build freedom-centred cultures, Traci says top leadership must have high self-worth. “Self-worth is being secure with who you are,” she says. The final component is organisational design, which Traci focuses on in her talk at the 2019 Happy Workplaces conference. Watch the complete talk in this blog.

Let’s Get Real On Empowering Our People

Over the last couple of years, Happy has undergone a transformation. Why? Because as chief happiness officer Henry Stewart revealed at the beginning of his talk at the 2019 Happy Workplaces Conference, Happy was losing a lot of money. Assessing the financial downturn, Henry and his leadership team realised they’d lost sight of some core principles. So instead of cutting things and getting more hierarchical, the turnaround was made possible by revisiting their core principles and acting in accordance.  One thing that Henry decided to do is make no decisions. Find out why in this video.

The Journey to Create a Happy Workplace in Manufacturing

Derek Hill, managing director of Advanced Technology Solutions, came to the 2019 Happy Workplaces conference to talk about his organisation’s journey to create a happy workplace in manufacturing. Derek equates the company’s pithy mantra – “we make factories run better” – to the central philosophy of the book Will It Make the Boat Go Faster? The intention to make factories run better has been at the nucleus of ATS since its inception in 1985.

At Sure Petcare, a Happy Workplace Is More About What Leadership Doesn’t Do

Sarah Metcalfe is Head of Customer Service at Sure Petcare and she knows that a happy workplace is essential for enhancing the customer experience. When she asked her team, “what makes you happy at work?” what stood out was that it’s really more about what leadership doesn’t do. For example, they don’t impose SLAs or metrics. They don’t get mad if staff are late because they’re stuck in traffic. They don’t measure people and don’t ask them how long they’re going to be on the phone for. In this short video from the 2019 Happy Workplaces Conference, Sarah explains what gives her team the ability to do whatever it takes to make the customer happy.