Here you can find all of Happy’s blog posts, covering our Excel hints and tips, ideas for creating happy workplaces, and ways to be more productive at work — and more.
Have you ever worked for someone whose leadership made you feel smarter and more capable? Happy’s Cathy Busani understands the advantages of leaders who’re able multiply the abilities of their people. Speaking at the 2018 Happy Workplaces conference, Cathy draws from Liz Wiseman’s book, Multipliers: How the Best leaders Make Everyone Smarter, to illustrate how to become a multiplier of others. Watch the complete talk below.
Try locating the word ‘workhappiness’ in the English dictionary. You won’t find it. In Danish, however, there is a word for this condition – arbejdsglaede. Woohoo inc claim to be the happiness-at-work experts. Arlette Bentzen is the Danish company’s Chief Happiness Officer, meaning there’s no one better positioned to give tips on attaining arbejdsglaede. Watch Arlette's full presentation at the 2018 Happy Workplaces Conference, in which she offers three work-happiness tips derived from some of Denmark’s most progressive workplaces.
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.
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.
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.
Sarah Metcalfe is Head of Customer Service at Sure Petcare and she knows that a happy workplace is essential for enhancing the customer experience. Sarah points to research indicating that by 2020, 90% of customers will be choosing where they do business based on the customer experience. To achieve a net promoter score of around 9 or 10, it takes a human going to great lengths. In this full length video from the 2019 Happy Workplaces Conference, Sarah explains how Sure Petcare have created an environment that allows people to bring their whole selves to work.
At Sky UK, they have embraced Design Thinking to tackle common HR issues. Design Thinking is a methodology that provides a solution-based, human approach to problems. It aims to create multiple ideas during brainstorming, which can then be prototyped and tested in a empathetic way that people can easily understand. For Sky, in the final stage, they test people's reactions and gauge if it 'wows'. In this short video from the 2019 Happy Workplaces Conference, Tracey Waters explains how they applied Design Thinking to the question 'how might we help people at Sky have a fulfilling career?'
Cathy Busani's goal for the staff at Happy is that they experience joy in at least 80% of their work. In this video from the the 2019 Happy Workplaces Conference, Cathy explains how she aims to achieve this by focusing on strengths-based working — asking staff to think about what they are great at and seeing how they can incorporate it into their day-to-day working.
Alison Sturgess-Durden is the Director at Mayden, a software business based in Bath with a staff of 80 people. Mayden’s software is specifically created for health professionals and patients. Their most prominent achievement is the creation of a patient management system that’s favoured by most psychological therapy services in the NHS. In 2013 Mayden became a self-managing organisation, comprised of autonomous teams. In this video from the 2019 Happy Workplaces Conference, Alison explains the reasons behind the switch, how they did it and how it works (and some of the challenges they faced along the way!).
At the 2019 Happy Workplaces Conference, Rosie encouraged people to return to work and look at their respective organisations through a relational lens. In Rosie’s view, looking at things through a relational lens is a wily method for figuring out what’s working and what isn’t. Watch the full video or read the transcript of her talk here.