The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Happy companies

  • How to create happiness at work with 8 Golden Retriever puppies

    We are always looking for cool new ways to create happiness at work, and one of our clients just came up with one that is not only fun but without a doubt the cutest we’ve seen so far.

    We got this email from Mikkel from Advice, one of our clients in Denmark:

    I work at Advice – a communications company with 120 employees. We recently booked a keynote with Arlette from Woohoo Inc. which gave us a lot of inspiration to increase happiness at work with big and small initiatives throughout the company.

    One coworker was particularly inspired by the idea of doing random acts of workplace kindness, so she persuaded her team leader to let her arrange a happiness café one regular grey October afternoon.

    Here, coworkers found 8 cute Golden Retriever puppies as well as coffee and a huge cake buffet. Everyone got a chance to pet and play with one of the cute little furballs and the event was “the talk of the town” all over the company.

    What a cool and fun idea. Here are some more photos to give you a sense of the event:

    Would this work in your workplace? Have you ever done something similar? How do you create happiness at work?

    Write a comment and share your best ideas.

  • Freedom at work = happiness at work

    “You’d be amazed what happens once people are empowered to make decisions.”

    Here’s a great article from CNN on how Denmark’s happiest workplace became so happy: they gave their employees freedom and responsibility.

    This is the moment they won first place in the Danish Great Place to Work ranking:

  • How one IT company created an internal academy – on little or no budget

    How do you best promote learning and development in a company?

    As Chief Happiness Officer of the Czech IT company Avast, Michal created the Growshop – an internal academy where coworkers could teach each other relevant skills and share their passion.

    Learn how he did it and how it made coworkers a little happier and smarter.

  • 5 lessons you can learn from Denmark’s happiest call center

    Call centers are notoriously tough workplaces.

    But City Call Center in Copenhagen is different. Very different. They were recently named one of Denmark’s best workplaces in the Great Place to Work Survey and people love working here.

    In this interview, their founder and CEO Pouline Mangaard explains how she has created the (nearly) impossible: A happy call center.

     Her ideas are simple, effective and are relevant in any kind of workplace.

  • Why workplaces should let employees choose their own manager

    If you don’t have a good relationship with your manager, you will never be happy at work. But how can a workplace ensure that every employee has the right manager – someone they trust, like, respect and communicate well with?

    London-based training company Happy have come up with a radical but simple solution: Let every employee pick their own manager.

    That way, anyone who is not happy with their boss can simply pick a new one. Incidentally, bad bosses quickly find themselves without employees, eliminating that particular problem.

    In this inspiring speech their founder Henry Stewart shares how they do it along with two other great practices that have made Happy so… happy :)

  • Podcast with Søren Lockwood – a (very happy) financial CEO

    Michal Srajer, one of our Partners in Prague, is currently travelling the world and interviewing many different people for his podcast about happiness at work. His first interview was with me and you can hear it here.

    His second podcast features Søren Lockwood, the CEO of SEB Pension in Denmark, who took his company of 300 serious financial professionals in dark suits through a transformation that has resulted in happier employees, lower absenteeism, happier customers and better results.

    You can hear the podcast here:

    https://soundcloud.com/happinesspodcast/02-happiness-at-seb-pension-with-soren-lockwood-ceo

    Søren Lockwood also spoke at our conference this year in Copenhagen, where examined the classic question of whether  you can prove that happiness at work is good for the bottom line. He gave the best answer EVER:

     

  • At IKEA, umbrellas are CHEAPER when it rains

    Complete this sentence: “When it rains, the price of umbrellas goes __.”

    If you guessed up you’d be right in most places. But at IKEA stores, you’d be wrong.

    Here’s how they price their umbrellas depending on the weather:

    ikea-umbrella

    Yes, on rainy days, umbrellas are cheaper :o) What a nice way to make customers happy.

    This is no coincidence – happiness matters at IKEA. Their founder, Ingvar Kamprad, once said this:

    Work should always be fun for all colleagues. We all only have one life. A third of life is work. Without desire and fun, work becomes hell.

    To me, this attitude only makes sense. Making your employees happy makes the business more profitable and making your customers happy keeps them coming back.

    It ain’t rocket surgery, and fortunately more and more companies are figuring this out and committing themselves to happiness at work.

  • This company forces a random employee to take 2 weeks off every month

    This is just too cool: Every month, financial-services company Motley Fool selects a random employee who gets 2 weeks off and $1,000. Their mission is to spend those two weeks on whatever they want with zero contact with the office.

    They do this to show employees that it’s OK to balance work and life and not overwork yourself to death.

    Genius!

  • Does employee happiness boost results? This CEO gave the Best. Answer. Ever.

    This CEO has a cheeky (and awesome) 45-second answer to the question “Can you prove that happiness at work improves business results?”

    If only all CEOs shared his thinking :)

    PS: The video has subtitles in English. If you don’t see them, press the cc button in the video player.

  • Happy at work in Chile

    I’m currently in Chile to do 2 speeches for Transbank, a credit card transaction company that is already #1 on Chile’s Great Place to Work ranking.

    After my first speech, Christian Castro of Transbank sent me this video to show me a woman here in Chile, who is clearly very happy at work :)

    I’m speaking at Transbank’s annual employee retreat. This year, to really recognize the importance of emotions at work, they’ve themed the event after Pixar’s awesome Inside Out movie.

    I quickly grabbed the chance to dress up as my favorite character from Inside Out:

    IMG_20160422_085343