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.
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.
The first attendees of our Level 7 Senior Leadership programme have just completed their studies. The Level 7 programme is the equivalent of a post-graduate degree or MBA. In this blog, Henry speaks to people who attended the programme and how it changed both their leadership style and their organisation.
Henry discusses the importance of having several different tracks for promotion. Management isn't always for everyone and people should be paid for what they are good at.
Last month I wrote a LinkedIn post suggesting that staff should decide the CEO’s salary, based on my own experience of doing just that. So far it has received 344,000 views and 505 comments. And it seems to have been controversial.
Is your organisation one where people can move quickly and get new ideas out there, or is it stymied in levels of approval and hierarchy? In this blog, Henry talks about some of the various approaches of several well-known companies, as well as Happy's own policy towards this.
Let’s stop asking for degrees in recruitment. Santander recently announced that they would remove the requirement for a 2:1 degree from its graduate scheme, and is apparently the only bank to allow graduates with a third-class degree. I would go beyond that and ask why degrees are necessary at all. Maybe graduate schemes should be changed to simply employ the brightest and the best, whether or not they have a degree.
I’m now back from my sabbatical and, while I was away, our people at Happy decided to make the four-day week (currently a six-month pilot) permanent. It has been a remarkable success. In this blog I talk about the key results of the survey that informed the decision to go permanent.
The Happy Manifesto Podcast, based on the principles in the award-winning management book The Happy Manifesto, will be launching on 12th January 2023. The aim of the podcast is to help people to create happy, productive workplaces. The podcast will be hosted by Henry Stewart, the author of The Happy Manifesto and CEO of Happy, and Maureen Egbe, Senior Facilitator and Confidence Activator at Happy.
When I read Maverick in 1992, it transformed what was then Happy Computers. I went from being a micro-managing boss, who rang every day from holiday to check things were going ok, to – eventually – a fully trust-based environment. For me it is the best business book ever written. I have given copies to many of the staff at Happy and I have given over 500 copies away to others. So, on my sabbatical I decided to re-read it, on its 30th anniversary.
Happy was recently featured in The Office: Re-Defined documentary, created by Inês Santos, Noopur Jambhekar and Anagha Raghunath. In this short extract, The Office: Re-Defined explores the four-day working week. Inês interviewed Happy's founder and Chief Happiness Officer, Henry Stewart, about the four-day week and our experiences so far. In our 'new normal' following the pandemic, is this the future of the office?