Brendan O’Keefe, Epic CIC – Advice for re-motivating staff
Brendan was the last speaker of the day, and is Managing Director of Epic CIC. On 1st January 2014, Epic moved away from Royal Borough of Kensington’s Youth Support and Development Service, becoming the UK’s first youth service employee-led mutual. Brendan and his team worked with Happy to create an exciting and happy workplace.
Brendan discussed the challenges involved in this new way of working – including giving staff pre-approval to make decisions, removing triangulation from the workplace, and recruiting for attitude.
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Pre-approval was an idea Brendan took from Henry’s Happy Manifesto, and he admits that it was difficult – particularly when the first decision made through the pre-approval system, was coming up with the new name! However, he says “when you give a team a task and the responsibility, they do it really well.”
You can read more about how Happy worked with Epic CIC in Henry’s Blog.
Click here to download Brendan’s PowerPoint presentation (PDF).

Claire Lickman
Claire is Head of Marketing at Happy. She has worked at Happy since 2016, and is responsible for Happy's marketing strategy, website, social media and more. Claire first heard about Happy in 2012 when she attended a mix of IT and personal development courses. These courses were life-changing and she has been a fan of Happy ever since. She has a personal blog at lecari.co.uk.
Next Conference: Happy Teams and the Buurtzorg Way
We are very excited to be partnering with Buurtzorg for this online event! If you haven't heard of them, Buurtzorg is a healthcare organisation in the Netherlands with over 15,000 staff that receives top marks from care inspectors and has a current patient satisfaction rating of 9.3. It's also been rated five times as one of the top places to work in the Netherlands. Why? Their staff is made up of hundreds of self-managing teams supported by regional coaches and a back office of just 50 people — with overheads accounting for just 8% of its total costs!
At this workshop from 10am to 4pm on 27th May 2021, you will hear from nurses and a coach working the Buurtzorg way in both Britain and the Netherlands. You will also be introduced to some of the techniques Happy uses for more effective staff involvement in decision-making.
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