Following Socrates and Creating Empowerment

It’s funny when I find myself quoted and it’s a better summary than I’d do myself.

Kensington Youth Services was part of Kensington and Chelsea Council until April 2014. They changed their name to Epic CIC on becoming independent. To break free from the Council and establish themselves as an independent social enterprise, they needed to radically change their organisation's culture. Under the leadership of Brendan O'Keefe, they needed to create an innovative company that would thrive in a competitive market wile still reflecting public sector values. Happy has supported Epic CIC throughout this transformation through leadership programmes and workshops.

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.

Let Your People Create Your Performance Framework, Says Brendan O'Keefe

When Brendan O'Keefe and his team formed the independent social enterprise Epic CIC, Brendan challenged his people to create their own performance appraisal at their staff conference. After much discussion and debate, the team created 8 items that are now used in appraisals and recruitment. Find out more in this short clip from Brendan's talk at the 2015 Happy Workplaces Conference.

Brendan O’Keefe on implementing the Happy Manifesto when moving from public sector to private sector

Brendan O’Keefe at Happy Workplaces 2015

We offer a range of public Live Interactive Learning Online courses from our IT skills, Personal Development and Leadership programmes. These sessions are open to all. We also offer a range of Classroom courses as public dates.

How Many of These Mistakes Do You Make in Your Online Meetings?

Love them or loathe them, we go to more meetings than ever, especially as more work is done in collaborative cross business teams. There are some simple steps we can all take to improve these group conversations dramatically and create leaps forward in clarity and progress. Meetings are surprisingly complex human interactions so making them more purposeful, more honest and easier to follow can have a seriously helpful effect. Try these five simple ideas to start with.

Success and Happiness with Srikumar Rao

Dr. Srikumar Rao is an elite coach and author, aimed at helping entrepreneurs, professionals, and senior executives make a quantum leap in their life and career.  He believes that when people have joy in their lives, when they discover their deep-rooted happiness and a sense of purpose, that they are able to grow in ways they might not have ever progressed in before.

How Helen Sanderson MBE Has Created People-Centric Workplaces

Helen Sanderson originally set up Wellbeing Teams in 2016 with the aim of radically changing the way health and social care is delivered. Inspired by the Dutch care company Buurtzorg, Wellbeing Teams are small, neighbourhood self-managed care teams. They have coaches, but no managers. Find out how Helen created Wellbeing Teams as a self-managing organisation that is focused on letting team members be human with each other in Henry's blog.

Bring Generosity to the Heart of Your Business

One of our trainers, Dhira Wiggins, has spent most of October and November providing free database support for local charities. He had been allocated to a two month database training project, and then the client cancelled – leaving Dhira with an empty diary. It didn’t make sense, for him or for Happy, to have nothing to do so we emailed our charity clients asking if any needed some free help setting up or fixing a database (as this is Dhira’s speciality). It proved quite a popular offer and Dhira ended up providing support to eleven different charities, including.

Pre-Approve It!

What is the key to creating a happy workplace? I’ve just a written a book with what I see as the 10 key principles of a great workplace but for me one thing stands out.

Epic's requirements were commercial capability and culture transformation. The key test was whether the new company could not just survive but successfully expand its services. Here's what we did.

How Microsoft Excel Can Increase Your Productivity

Microsoft Excel is certain to improve your life at work. Microsoft Excel is one of the modern workplace’s most indispensable computer programs. The daily operations of a huge variety of businesses – from travel adventure companies and art dealerships to retail stores and sports broadcasters – would be considerably tougher without the utility of Excel. It’s no exaggeration to call Excel the preeminent spreadsheet program, but for those unfamiliar with its workplace contributions, here’s a look at some productivity-boosting features.

Improve Collaboration for a More Productive Workplace

Would you like to collaborate and work better with your colleagues? In this blog, Billy gives his five tips to improve collaboration, starting with working on your Active Listening skills.