happy Blogs

Jeremy Tidy Tells the Happy Graphics Story

How do you create and track goals for your organisation? Jeremy Tidy explains why goal planning and tracking has been so important to him at Happy Graphics.

Nigel Paine at Creating Happy Workplaces Conference 2013

Nigel Paine headed the BBC’s Learning and Development operation. He built an award winning Leadership programme, state of the art informal learning and knowledge sharing and one of the most successful and well used intranets in the corporate sector.

Emma Rapoport: How Google ensured managers were better suited for their positions

Emma Rapoport, of Google, spoke at the Happy Workplaces conference about her experiences in management and leadership development as well as various other strengths.

Hounslow Council: How Staff and Residents Remoulded the Council to Make a New, Happy Hounslow.

Steve Walker-Whitehead is the Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development at the London Borough of Hounslow and he helped to lead the workforce transformation programme and the development of the new One Hounslow values framework. In this video, from the 2022 Happy Workplaces Conference, Steve is joined by his colleague Tracy Ampah, Head of Organisational Development Leadership and Learning, as they take us through the transformation step-by-step and talk us through some feedback stories from their staff as they embark on the Happy Level 7 Senior Leadership Programme or Happy MBA.

Vivek Menon: How to Establish Self-Managing, Happy Teams in an Orthodox, Hierarchic Business.

Vivek Menon is a Senior Director of Sales at Danfoss Power Solutions. He works within the eSteering Department which Vivek describes as “the Tesla of farm equipment”. He recognised the benefits of self-managing teams and, when restructuring the department in 2017, Vivek committed to this model even though every other department at Danfoss was very traditional and hierarchical. In this video, from the 2022 Happy Workplaces Conference, Vivek talks to Happy’s Henry Stewart about how his team works, the benefits of a self-managing team and challenges you to see if your workforce really is empowered.

Marwa Farouq: Teach for All - How to Focus on Diversity and Think Sustainability in Business.

Marwa Farouq is a Certified Executive Coach, Certified Family Coach and Parent Educator and works as the Global Head of Operations Circle at Teach for All. Teach for All is a worldwide network of 60 independent, locally led partner organisations who work together to develop a coalition of leaders to tackle the complex challenges facing children in disadvantaged communities. Marwa explains, in this video from the 2022 Happy Workplaces video, how Teach for All operates as self-managing across different cultures whilst maintaining a clear focus on diversity, inclusion and sustainability.

Donna Hall: Are you Really Listening? How to Better Hear People and Increase Happiness.

When Donna Hall was the Chief Executive of Wigan Council it was facing the third worst austerity cuts in the country and yet, despite this, they won Council of the Year. The reason for this success was undoubtedly the Wigan Deal that Donna and her team created to transform the way the council worked and listened. At the 2022 Happy Workplaces Conference Donna told us about how the Wigan Deal took shape, the skills they learned in the process and how the deal not only changed Wigan but also influenced other councils to change their ways.

Pim de Morree: Want Happy, Inspired and Motivated Teams? Here's Everything you Need.

Pim de Morree is the Co-founder of Corporate Rebels. In 2016 Pim had grown weary of the corporate world and so quit his job and, alongside his friend Joost Minaar, founded Corporate Rebels in an effort to fight against the trudge and despair of outdated workplaces. Corporate Rebels started as a blog documenting Pim and Joost visiting radical workplaces and showing the world of business another way. Over time it has grown into much more than a blog, it’s a movement, a quest to make work fun. In this video, from the 2022 Happy Workplaces Conference, Pim spoke to us about the work done by Corporate Rebels and told us the vital ingredients needed for happy, inspired and motivated teams.

Helen Sanderson: How do we Want to Show up Together? Confirmation Practices for Happier Teams.

Helen Sanderson was inspired by Dutch home-care organisation Buurtzorg to set up Wellbeing Teams in 2016. Helen’s aim was to radically change the way health and social care was delivered and she succeeded as Wellbeing Teams was awarded ‘Outstanding’ on its first CQC inspection. When Helen worked as an Occupational Therapist in the NHS she had regular supervision meetings but she realised that these meetings were about compliance and not about reflection and responsibility. Helen wanted to do things differently with her teams and discovered Confirmation Practices were the way to do this. In this video from the 2022 Happy Workforces Conference Helen explains Confirmation Practices and how the process helps at Wellbeing Teams.

Kate Grimes – Autonomy and Patient Care in the NHS

Kate Grimes has risen from hospital porter to CEO of Kingston NHS. In this thoughtful presentation at the 2014 Happy Workplaces Conference, Kate explains how Kingston created its values-driven culture, promotes autonomy coupled with coaching and accreditation, and poses the question “If we know this stuff works so well, why doesn’t the NHS do more of it?”