happy Blogs

Humanity Above Bureaucracy: How Buurtzorg Reinvented Dutch Home Care

Brendan Martin of UK organisation Public World was serving as the principal carer for his mum when he noticed that UK home care organisations weren't just typically underfunded, but also managed in counterproductive ways. He's been working in collaboration with Dutch home care organisation Buurtzorg to improve home care in the UK. Madelon van Tilburg has been at Buurtzorg since 2011. Buurtzorg differs from her previous employers in that it lets nurses exercise freedom and responsibility in the job they’re trained for. Brendan and Madelon spoke at the 2017 Happy Workplaces Conference about how Buurtzorg reinvented Dutch home care and how the same could be done in the UK.

Five Good News Stories (February 2021 Edition)

We’re currently enduring the worst public health crisis in more than 100 years. Life on earth has undergone many dramatic changes and a return to “normal” still feels a long way off. But we do live in profoundly progressive times, with modern humans continuing to make amazing discoveries and breakthroughs. Here are five good news stories to provide respite from the doom and gloom of a regular news bulletin.

Learn About Our Brave Leadership Programme in our Free Taster Session

Join us for an inspirational look at female leadership and discover more about our one year transformational programme. Our unique blended package of events is all about uncovering, celebrating, and nurturing your power as a female leader. In this taster session we will be exploring what assertive leadership looks like and what this means from a woman's perspective. There is no charge for this 60-minute online workshop on 23rd January, delivered face-to-face online via Zoom. All welcome, with no obligation and no hard sales pitch.

The Future of Work is Human

Peter Cheese, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, believes humans will maintain indispensable workplace significance even as technology continues to expand. View Peter's talk from the 2017 Happy Workplaces conference, in which he makes a compelling case for why the future of work is human.

Make work more fun

Make Work More Fun. That’s the title of the inspirational book from Corporate Rebels, published in 2020. The rebels, Joost Minnaar and Pim De Morree, gave up their jobs five years ago to tour the world visiting the most exciting organisations on the planet. The book tells the story of what they found. In this blog, Henry Stewart unpacks a number of the book's key arguments, which can help you discover a different way of organising companies, one that is more fulfilling for its people and more productive for the organisation.

Liberating Structures: Giving Everybody an Equal Voice

Imagine if every meeting or event that you attended gave every participant the chance to speak and to express their views. That is what is made possible by Liberating Structures, 33 methods that avoid one person dominating and instead give everybody a voice. If you want your online events to be truly interactive, this could be the place to start. In this blog, Henry Stewart offers a summary of 8 different Liberating Structures.

Happy Workplaces are More Successful

The research has been done and the evidence is in: there is a clear link, shown in many studies, confirming that companies with great workplaces are more successful commercially. In this blog, Henry Stewart provides the evidence that happy workplaces simply perform better.

How Microsoft Teams Keeps Improving Our Remote Working Experience

Before spring 2020, many of us may not have heard of Microsoft Teams — but it's now become a household name. With Teams, you can keep your files, conversations and video meetings all in one place, making remote working so much simpler. Microsoft has been adding new features to the application throughout the course of the year in order to make the software more immersive, flexible and convenient. In this blog, Billy highlights a range of Teams’ latest innovations, which are designed to both enhance user experience and improve productivity in our 'new normal'.

Let’s Give Everybody an Equal Voice

Imagine at your events if everybody got to speak equally. Imagine the most senior people did not get to dominate the discussion. Imagine the loudest voices weren’t the ones who carried the decisions. In this blog, Henry Stewart goes through nine Liberating Structures, which make it so everybody has an equal voice.

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.