happy blogs

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.

Michele Zanini: How Too Much Bureaucracy Stifles Innovation

We all hate tedious paperwork. Filling out transport claim documents, internal KPI tracking documentation, expenses claims… All these things can utterly drain your soul, but we do it because we must, because it’s important. But is it? Well, Michele Zanini would say no, or at the very least, not always, in this talk from the 2024 Happy Workplaces Conference.

Bjarte Bogsnes: Why Budgets Might Be Harming Your Finances and Your Employee's Happiness

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Beyond Budgeting is only about, well, budgeting. However, it’s about so much more than that. Budgeting isn’t a sole element of a business, it’s a facet that appears in every department and at every level. Whether you want to take a business trip, implement a new IT system or simply get some new stationery, that will impact, and be impacted by, your organisation’s relevant budgets. However, an organisation’s attitude towards budgeting often reflect more than just its fiscal responsibility. In this video from the 2023 Happy Workplaces Conference, Bjarte Bogsnes explains how budgets might be holding back your organisation.

Nigel Paine: Why a Positive Culture is the Key Ingredient of Success

Every successful organisation proudly boasts of how great their culture is and how that has enabled them to succeed. But creating a happy workplace can’t be forced, and getting rid of a bad culture can be a very challenging undertaking. In this video from the 2024 Happy Workplaces Conference, Nigel Paine explains the hallmarks of a happy workplace and how you can emulate this in your organisation.

Daniel Dzikowski: Why You Should Learn With Happy

Daniel is a champion of Happy’s leadership and management programmes, as he explained during this talk at the 2024 Happy Workplaces Conference. Daniel learned of Happy two decades ago, when he had set out to start his own business and wanted to undertake some learning to ensure that he would have the skills and knowledge to make it a success.

Caron Bradshaw: Why You Should Try Leading With Love

Caron has a wide array of experience across charity, regulation/law, policy, member support, and professional ethics and has been awarded with an OBE. In this video from the Happy Workplaces 2024 conference, Caron explains her management philosophy of "leading with love".

Femi Otitoju: How Agile Leadership Can Get The Most From Your People

"I would have just been going through some things that required me to really think on my feet and be responsive to people and I looked back and thought, actually, this has been going on since I started my businesses." For Femi, great leadership is leadership that’s agile and authentic, that adapts to everyone’s unique strengths rather than trying to treat everyone the same way, and seeing everyone as valuable individuals. During her talk at the 2024 Happy Workplaces Conference, Femi talked about her long and varied career and about examples of this type of leadership she’s either experienced or provided herself over this time.

Lisa and The Moose Heads: Tuff Leadership Training

Lisa Gill, founder of Reimaginaire, trainer with Tuff Leadership Training and host of the Leadermorphosis podcast, was included in the Thinkers50 Radar List 2020 for her work with self-managing teams. In this talk from the 2023 Happy Workplaces Conference, Lisa talks about ways you can create more Psychological Safety in your workplace, about removing moose heads and how to avoid becoming a ‘positive stinker’.

Mister Happiness: Arnaud Collery from Tech X Happiness

Arnaud Collery is the Tech X Happiness speaker and Chief Happiness Officer is known as ‘Mister Happiness’. In this talk from the 2023 Happy Workplaces Conference, Arnaud explains the currency of personal authenticity. Using examples from his own life and the experiences of those he coaches around the world, he describes how a process of continual self-evaluation and reinvention can bring you to your ‘authentic self’ – a person that is recognised and valued both within and outside of the workplace.

Why Happy is a Great Place to Work: A Talk From Our Team

In this talk from the 2023 Happy Workplaces Conference, Sal, Laura and Rebecca share what makes Happy a great place to work. This includes discussing the four-day week and how it works in practice, as well as how Happy’s staff live the company’s values.