A few weeks ago I did a workshop for a pharmaceutical company in Iceland called Medis as part of their 30 year anniversary and strategy kick-off. As you can see, they kinda liked it :) The guy in the front row in the blue suit is their CEO Valur Ragnarsson.
Now, as we all know a workshop itself changes nothing so we always work with our clients to come up with a plan that will actually make a difference in the workplace. As part of that plan, I challenged Valur to come up with something he could do that would be fun, easy and visible – just to show people that he is committed to creating a happy workplace.
And a few days later he sent me these pics where he’s making fresh waffles and pancakes for his employees:
What an awesome idea :)
I asked Valur how he liked the experience and here’s what he said:
I thoroughly enjoyed it – the biggest joy I actually got out of observing the reaction of the colleagues !
FYI we did not announce anything but simply showed up in the corridor without notice and took people pleasantly bysurprise….. now it will boil down to a plan and team supporting this (which we have in place already btw).
The only problem was that the smoke alarm kept going off, so they had to temporarily disable it :)
Well done, Valur!
Just to be clear: We’re not saying that you can turn an unhappy workplace into a happy one, by having the CEO make pancakes :)
What we’re saying is that upper management can support the process of creating a happy workplace by doing something fun and unexpected that shows employees that they are committed to the goal and willing to go a little bit outside of their comfort zone.
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