Three Reasons Why You’ll Love Power BI Desktop

If you analyse data in Excel then you’ll love Power BI Desktop.

'Love', Kindness and Patience are the Keys to Leadership, Says Caron Bradshaw

“Leadership is a term, much like ‘strategy’, that is misused and misunderstood. I don’t believe that being a leader is about being the CEO, hierarchy, wielding power and control or having all the answers. Yet leaders can have a hard time breaking out of the traditional concepts of leadership and embracing a different approach. And others fail to recognise their own leadership qualities considering themselves too junior or lacking that leadership ‘title’,” says Caron Bradshaw OBE.

Beyond making companies earn more, happy and engaged employees also help firms to significantly reduce costs.

1 Million Pounds to Spend and Nobody is Interested

Happy is moving. A month ago, just before the deadline for the landlord’s break clause approached, a law clerk arrived at our office and served a notice to quit. The landlord plans to redevelop the building and we have to be out of our office by 30th October.

Let’s Get Real On Empowering Our People

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.

Make Your People Happy, Like John Lewis Does

I often ask groups where they have found the best customer service. Two companies stand out and always come up: Apple and John Lewis. And when lists are published of the UK’s most admired businesses you can be sure that John Lewis is at or near the top. So I felt greatly honoured yesterday to be speaking alongside Charlie Mayfield, Chair of John Lewis (at Tomorrow’s Company “Tomorrow’s Value” event).

Happy Starts 4 Day Week Trial

Happy has just started the six month trial of a four-day working week being organised in the UK by 4 Day Week Global. We are joining over 60 other organisations in this pilot. We discussed it at a staff meeting earlier in the year, carried out a survey and our people voted 16-1 to go for a permanent four-day week, as long as the pilot succeeds.

Andrew Barnes: Why the 4 Day Week is the Future of Work

Andrew Barnes is the head of New Zealand's biggest corporate trust company, Perpetual Guardian, but he's probably better known as the father of the four-day week movement. Andrew trialled the four-day week at Perpetual Guardian in 2018, despite a lot of fear and opposition from his board and management team. It was a resounding success and has grown into a movement with unprecedented momentum. In this video from the 2022 Happy Workplaces Conference, Andrew explores some of the data supporting the four-day working week and challenges you to think about how it would work in your organisation.

How to be a Multiplier and Why it is Important

I recently did a podcast with Liz Wiseman, the author of Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter (and Impact Players). Her book, Multipliers, has had a transformational impact on Happy and on our programmes. All of our ‘people managers’ are Multipliers, who enable their people to do their best work, and we’ve began training others on how to be a Multiplier on our leadership programmes.

Make the Most of the New Office 365 Features

Office 365 subscribers will know that Microsoft regularly unfurls new features and updates for the software’s constituent apps. But given the frequency of these updates, there’s a chance you either haven’t caught up or are yet to take full advantage of the exciting new additions. Here’s a look at some attention-grabbing features to have shown up in recent months.

Happy is proud to be a Freedom-Centered Workplace

I am proud to announce that Happy has qualified as a WorldBlu certified Freedom-Centred Workplace for the fourth time. We are one of only three UK companies to make the list this year and are honoured to be there alongside John Lewis.

Sarah Pugh of Whizz Kidz: Her 15 Tips for Creating a Happy Workplace

At the 2021 Happy Workplaces Conference, we had a fabulous presentation from Sarah Pugh. I ask the speakers at our conferences to share 'nickable' ideas that people can put into practice and Sarah came up with no less than 15 of these. Sarah has just become Chief Executive of Whizz Kidz, so a lot of this relates to when she was CEO at Heart of Kent Hospice.

Make the most of Office 365's latest updates

One of the perks of being an Office 365 subscriber is Microsoft’s regular unfurling of new features and updates for the software’s constituent apps (Access, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Visio and Word).

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.