We were delighted to welcome over 100 people to our sixth annual Happy Workplaces Conference, held at Glaziers Hall in Central London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Our excellent line up of speakers included Cathy Busani, Managing Director of Happy Ltd; Laurence Vanh\u00e9e, formerly Chief Happiness Officer at the Belgian Ministry of Social Security; Sarah Gillard, who likes to be known as the Director of Happiness at the John Lewis Partnership; and Donna Reeves, formerly Director of Internal Communications and Engagement at Kingfisher PLC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Glaziers Hall, next to London Bridge, was the perfect setting for the event. This historical venue was built by William Cubitt and opened in 1866. The 1830 London Bridge built by Sir John Rennie was replaced in 1967-1972, but one of the arches of the original bridge can still be seen in the basement space \u2013 the London Bridge Arches. We hired the London Bridge Arches room for lunch and refreshments throughout the day \u2013 this beautiful space has three restored Georgian brick arches and a Grade II listed original York stone floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The day was full of inspiring ideas, leaving everyone feeling motivated and excited to create happy, productive workplaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Here are the top 11 take-aways from the day, taken from the evaluation forms completed at the end of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cathy Busani\u2019s talk centered on Multipliers and Accidental Diminishers, an idea from Liz Wiseman\u2019s book, Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everybody Smarter.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Multipliers are leaders who make their team feel smarter and more capable, and in turn, their teams are higher performing \u2013 everyone brings their expertise and \u2018smarts\u2019 to the table. Accidental Diminishers, meanwhile, make their people question their own intelligence and leave their great ideas at home. This wastes the talent and intellect of the people around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe title Accidental Diminisher is really important, this word accidental \u2013 it\u2019s not that you\u2019ve been purposely doing this. One of the challenges that people often say to me is \u2018But no, isn\u2019t it really helpful when I see my team failing if I support them and help make it a success?\u2019 Yes, but it depends how much you step in and to what degree, and how much dependence you create as a result of that,\u201d explained Cathy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Arlette Benzen of Woohoo! Inc worked with LEGO a few years ago, and one of the things that they have introduced is an \u2018item zero\u2019 on the agenda of every meeting where they each share something positive \u2013 whether that is just one person sharing a project they have been working on, some recent praise they received, or a team sharing something together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you look into the science we actually saw that meetings that start with something positive will be better meetings. We could see that, firstly, meetings that start with something positive will, for the rest of the meeting, be in a more positive atmosphere. Secondly, when meetings that start with something positive, it will be easier to agree on something \u2013 and so often at meetings we want to agree on something. And last but not least, meetings that start with something positive will be shorter\u201d said Arlette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nikki Gatenby explained that at Propellernet, each member of staff is given one \u2018propel day\u2019 a month. This propel day is designed for staff to propel themselves forward \u2013 however they feel that is most beneficial to themselves and to the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not particularly interested in what they\u2019re doing that day, although I\u2019m happy to talk about it. What I\u2019m more interested in is what happens when they come back into the business and how they can supercharge what we\u2019re doing,\u201d says Nikki.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was also discussed by Nikki Gatenby of Propellernet. As there is a large issue with burnout in marketing and advertising, Nikki wants to make sure that everyone in the organisation is taking care of themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each member of the team meets with a manager to ask four things \u2013 are you taking your holiday? Are you taking your propel days? Are you working with our resident coach? And do you know about our health cash plan?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nikki explains more about these well-being check-ins in the short video below<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n2. Start meetings with something positive<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
3. Give staff a \u2018propel day\u2019<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
4. Have regular well-being check-ins with staff<\/h3>\n\n\n\n