happy Blogs

As Commander of a nuclear submarine, David Marquet determined to make no decisions and instead to coach his staff to be their best. The Sante Fe became the best performing submarine in US navy history. He talks about how he did it in his book Turn This Ship Around. At the 2021 Happy Workplaces Conference, David joined us for an Ask Me Anything session. Questions were crowd sourced from the audience at the event, with David answering the best ones. Watch David's video and read the transcript here.

Simon Fowler, Board Member at the John Lewis Partnership Talks Happy

Simon Fowler, a Board Member of the John Lewis Partnership, talks about their unique culture that aligns very closely with The Happy Manifesto principles in this video from the 2015 Happy Workplaces Conference.

How Can You Get Your People To Do What They Are Great At?

Gallup has found that in the UK, only 17% of employees get to do what they are best at everyday at work. But when they do get to do what they are best at, they are 30-40% more productive. At Happy, we get every member of staff to take the Gallup StrengthsFinder survey to find out their strengths, and have team job descriptions so that teams can delegate tasks to who it best suits. In this short video, taken from the Happy Workplace Round Table on 23rd October 2024, Henry gives examples about how Happy and other organisations have gotten people to work to their strengths. How can you implement these ideas at your workplace?

How Can You Ensure Decisions Are Made By Frontline Staff, Rather Than Managers?

How are decisions made in your organisation? Are they made by the frontline staff, or by the managers? Henry Stewart explains how you can get rid of outdated hierarchical decision-making processes in this Happy Workplace Round Table, recorded on Wednesday 6th November 2024.

Alun Pomfrett: Why It's Important To Make Pre-Approval Work

Giving your staff more autonomy means they don’t require as much oversight, freeing up the time of managers. It allows people to take ownership of their work, feel trusted and confident, and creates more joy at work. Implementing it, however, can be tricky. Alun Pomfrett, HR Manager at Leicester-based Cocoa Amore and graduate of Happy’s Level 7 Senior Leadership Apprenticeship Programme has developed a very simple way to make autonomy work for your staff, as he explains at the 2023 Happy Workplaces Conference.

Helen Taylor: Break Free From Bureaucracy with Pre-Approval

How much money would you trust your employees to spend, without checking with their manager first? £50? £100? How about £50,000? Helen Taylor from the London Borough of Hounslow, who is currently enrolled on the Level 7 Senior Leadership Apprenticeship Programme, explains in this talk from the 2023 Happy Workplaces Conference how she has implemented a system where her staff are Pre-Approved to spend £100,000.

Does Your Organisation Have a Coaching Culture?

In this video, recorded from his live session on Wednesday 9th October, Henry Stewart highlights the importance of coaching in the workplace - and asks, does your organisation have a coaching culture?

Happy's Apprenticeship Programmes Recognised as Good by Ofsted

The quality of Happy's apprenticeship programmes has recently been recognised as Good within the Ofsted further education and skills inspection. Ofsted reviewed the overall effectiveness of our quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and apprenticeships, giving us the Good mark on each and every category.

Celebrate Black History Month with Happy

Join us for a free, interactive online celebration on Tuesday, 15th October from 10am, as we honour Black History Month and showcase the incredible talent within our Global Majority leadership community.

Emma Halahan: How You Could Benefit From a Leadership Apprenticeship with Happy

Many years ago, an apprenticeship was something that young people did at the beginning of their careers to learn a vocation in a hands-on way from an expert. However, in the last 20 years that has drastically changed. Apprenticeships are now available to anyone, of any age and at any stage of their career, in a range of subjects. Happy has run leadership apprenticeship programmes for several years now at Level 3, Level 5 and Level 7. Emma is an alumni of Happy’s Level 5 Apprenticeship Programme for Experienced Managers which she found invaluable. Emma talked about her experience with the programme and how it’s affected how she works at the 2024 Happy Workplaces Conference.