Henry is founder and Chief Happiness Officer of Happy Ltd, originally set up as Happy Computers in 1987. Inspired by Ricardo Semler’s book Maverick, he has built a company which has won multiple awards for some of the best customer service in the country and being one of the UK’s best places to work.
Henry was listed in the Guru Radar of the Thinkers 50 list of the most influential management thinkers in the world. "He is one of the thinkers who we believe will shape the future of business," explained list compiler Stuart Crainer.
His first book, Relax, was published in 2009. His second book, the Happy Manifesto, was published in 2013 and was short-listed for Business Book of the Year.
You can find Henry on LinkedIn and follow @happyhenry on Twitter.
Imagine a company with 9,000 staff and no managers. Imagine annual sales of 280 million euros and no Chief Financial Officer, with only six people working in finance. Imagine it has grown to that size from, 8 years ago, having just four staff – although it is not-for-profit and has no venture capital investment.
The first Happy Workplace Ireland conference took place in Dublin on 29th October. This was jointly organised between Happy Ltd and locally-based happiness entrepreneur Stephen Dargan of Wake Up!.
Lynne Pearce was a much loved member of staff at Happy Computers, who had been a trainer here for just over ten years. It is with much sadness that I write that she passed away on Friday 7th August as a result of Pancreatic Cancer.
Do we want people to make mistakes? The answer I generally get to this question is 'Yes', because people recognise that this is how we learn and discover new ways of doing things. In this blog, find out about eight companies that celebrate mistakes by staff, and how they do it.
I am quoted this morning in an article in the Independent: “Capita accused of using major government contract to short-change small companies, driving some out of business.”
Unleash the power of the people in your workplace. Isn't that what democracy is about?
Henry gave a speech at WorldBlu's Freedom at Work Conference in Miami in 2015. Henry explains why you should allow your people to choose their manager.
Tesco achieves its low prices through thousands of direct relationships with suppliers, with whom it drives hard bargains. Imagine if instead, they put out a tender for a company to run the refrigerated foods section.
Last night I found we were out of recycling bags, without which Hackney Council won’t accept our recycling. So I went on the Council site and, in about 1 minute, ordered some new ones. But here’s the remarkable bit. By the time I left our house at 11am this morning, the bags had been hand delivered to our front door. Which leads me to ask, why can’t the private sector be as efficient as the public sector?
I founded Happy Ltd in 1987. Of that 28 years of running this award-winning business, the last five have definitely been the hardest. Visit our website.