happy Blogs

Happy's January competition is back with another set of fantastic prizes. For a chance to win, tell us what challenge you overcame in 2020 and how you met it — or how you will meet it in 2021, if you didn't in 2020. Our top prize includes a free place on any of our one or two day courses, the Happy Planner / Learning Journal, one year's access to our Happy Video Library, and more! Closing date: midnight GMT on 31st January 2021. Winner will be announced on 3rd February 2021.

How to Create Truly Engaging Online Conferences

Have you, like me, been to a number of online events where you just have to sit and listen while the speakers talk? There may be people that feel they learn well from this approach, but I honestly doubt it. You would probably be better off listening to some TED Talks. In this blog, Happy’s CHO Henry Stewart provides a step-by-step account of how to create a truly engaging online conference.

Let's Get Rid of Annual Appraisals, and Replace Them With Regular Snapshots

Around three years ago, Happy organised a vote of all our employees on whether they wanted to keep the annual appraisal. As we expected, they didn’t – with 83% voting to scrap them. Of course it still makes sense to carry out a regular review, so we replaced it with a four monthly happy@happy snapshot. Find out more in this blog.

The Curious Case of Teams and Unconscious Competence

While those of us who have been working on computers for years could adapt to MS Teams with very little difficulty, we shouldn't neglect our colleagues whose roles previously required little or no IT knowledge.  In this blog, Darren looks at how a simple application like Teams is not always so simply explained to newcomers.

Overcoming the Fear to Lead

Kill Your Fear With Servant Leadership: How a 1970s essay can help you do this and become happier too.  Servant Leadership is an approach very close to what we at Happy believe to be the role of leaders in an organisation. Here is a guest blog from leadership consultant Alex Holland on the subject.

If you are creating a Mail Merge, make sure that the first and last names are in different columns in your Excel spreadsheet using this handy tip.

What Do a Manager and an Underwater Photographer Have in Common?

The focus of Donna Reeves’ work is internal communication and engagement challenges. Although currently head of engagement at Fenwick, Donna previously worked at British multinational retailing company, Kingfisher, directing internal communication and engagement development. Donna refers back to her time at Kingfisher in her talk at the 2018 Happy Workplaces conference. In this two-minute excerpt, Donna reflects on an expression that she used with the managers: "calm the fish." Just like an underwater photographer has to move in a way that doesn't scare the fish, when a manager enters a room, they shouldn't cause anxiety or stress for their team.

What I Do Well + What is Useful + What I Love = Happiness at Work

When Laurence Vanhee joined Belgium's Ministry of Social Security, the department was struggling to recruit Belgian citizens to the civil service and simultaneously losing 40% of staff to retirement. Social Security is essential, especially in a country comprising two very distinct groups, so Laurence and her colleagues set out to change the laws in order to gain more flexibility, attract newbies and retain people. In this two minute clip from the 2018 Happy Workplaces Conference, Laurence outlines how the Ministry circumvented traditional HR practices to focus on what staff did well, what was useful to the organisation and what they love to do.

How often do you struggle to find an email that you need in Outlook? In this short 2 minute video, Nicky explains how you can use the search tools in Outlook to speed up finding emails in your inbox. These handy tools search all folders, and allow you to enter in as much information as you remember about the message.

How to Make 85,000 People Happy, According to John Lewis

Keeping 85,000 people happy at work is an imposing task. After experimenting with how to make people happy for 100 years, John Lewis has learnt that not everyone finds happiness in the same places. Sarah Gillard is the Director, Insight and Assurance within the Personnel function at the employee-owned John Lewis Partnership. In this two-minute video from the 2018 Happy Workplaces conference, Sarah offers three tips derived from the company’s decades of experimentation.