We have already sold over 100 tickets for our Conference on Happiness at Work in Copenhagen in May. One multinational company just bought 10 tickets, so they have a large group of people bringing back all the great inspiration, knowledge and tools.
And no wonder – this year’s program is our best ever with 12 AMAZING speakers.
We are constantly blown away by the great work our international partners do to promote happiness at work around the world. Here are just a few recent examples.
PlusConsulting in Israel did a Workplace Happiness seminar for 45 HR managers from leading organizations. They presented a case study of a big retail company that they have been working with for the last 2 years, to train all their managers with leading with happiness tools, and many other happiness tips. They have also been working with the National insurance services’ headquarters to involve positive psychology tools like mindfulness, appreciative inquiry and strengths in their daily routine.
Florian Amstutz of PeopleUp in Switzerland did a presentation on happiness and change management for 120 managers from a company. He had lot of fun and the CEO was really happy with the speech.
TGI Monday in Hong Kong have developed a workshop called Choosing Happiness at work which is dedicated to any employee willing to increase its happiness at work. It includes a lot of videos, good practices examples from caring organizations for Hong Kong FCCIHK – as you can see above, people love it :)
Mush Panjwani from Hong Kong will be going to Pakistan to do the first ever training on happiness at work in that country.
Happy Office from Holland did two sold-out workshops at the Agile India conference.
Vega IT Sourcing in Serbia did a charity relay race where 83 teams participated on a sunny Sunday morning to help children without parental care.
Nicolai Knudsen had a breakthrough in his work to make the Danish military a happier workplace when he gave a keynote at a conference for the organisation for personal advisors and colleague support, a voluntary organisation within the Ministry of Defense that helps people cope with personal problems, stress, offensive behavior, sexism, trauma and PTSD. The head of the MoD center for workplace environment health and safety was really inspired and had never seen that approach, despite having worked with health and safety in over two decades.
Mari Niwa from Ideal Leaders in Tokyo came up with a new way for coworkers to praise each other. In Japan people are a little shy, so rather than doing it in public, you can put up envelopes for each person and then people can praise you by writing a note and sticking it in your envelope.
Dr. Jenny Brockis recently delivered the closing keynote on Thriving@Work at a huge retail conference in Melbourne which was really well received and she’s now getting many more inquiries about this topic as organisations wake up to the need to improve their employees’ experiences at work to boost productivity, performance and overall happiness.
Paleta Znanj in Slovenia are wrapping up a 2-year project of rebuilding/upgrading organizational culture in one great and very successful small company (up to 20 employees, 25 years on the market) who needed help to cross the gap between financial and organic growth (high profits, low employee satisfaction), and to enter “modern age” of leadership. They helped align the company culture with their current and future needs, to make a shift from being profit oriented culture to being people and client oriented one and so to bring more happiness into their working lives and did analysis, counseling, team buildings, coaching, workshops and introduce a tool/system called the Growth Book.
In February I was in NYC to do run our latest Chief Happiness Officer Academy and while walking down a street in midtown Manhattan, I passed this lady standing on the sidewalk in front of a church.
Her sign made me so curious I had to stop and talk to her to learn more and I loved what I learned. Rev. Adrian Dannhauser serves as an Episcopal priest at Church of the Incarnation and every Tuesday morning 9:00-9:30 she stands on a busy New York sidewalk and blesses anyone who asks for it,
Here’s how she describes it on her blog:
During the half hour I’m out there, most people walk by me without making eye contact. Several smile and nod or say, “Good morning.” Ten or so actually stop and request a blessing. In that moment, I introduce myself, get the person’s name, and ask if there’s anything s/he needs prayer for. Responses vary but I’ve noticed some themes – a sick loved one, a struggling child, an upcoming job interview, the need for more peace and less stress, the state of our nation. Half of those who stop are in crisis. Someone always cries. And a few are simply curious or just looking for a good way to start the day. Each time, I offer a prayer based on the need expressed. Then I close by making the sign of the cross on the person’s forehead and pronouncing a blessing in the name of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I just love this. It’s a wonderful way to put yourself out there and brighten other peoples’ day.
We had a really nice chat about the nature of happiness, in particular how happiness comes from serving others – not yourself.
I am of course an atheist, but I did ask for a blessing anyway – and she gave me some really nice, uplifting words. She even remembered our encounter and wrote about it here.
There’s one thing I will never understand: Why some people hate their jobs, but still stay in them for years.
We want to inspire many more people to get out of jobs that are making them unhappy, so we’ve declared March 31 to be International Quit Your Crappy Job Day and have created a web site to match at www.internationalquityourcrappyjobday.com.
Here’s our announcement:
On the site you can take a test to see if it might be time to quit and you can read a number of articles about quitting.
There are also a ton of stories from people who found the courage to quit bad jobs. This one is my favorite.
So if you are not happy at work, take a look at the site. Or if someone you know and love is stuck in a crappy job, consider sharing the site with them.
We want more people to quit, but more than that we want many more people to realize that they have that option. Because if you hate your job, but believe that you are not free to quit and get away, the situation gets much, much worse.
Here’ an awesome writeup from a participant at our 2017 conference on happiness at work. I especially liked this part:
“The Conference has two traditions: perfect, sunny weather and energetic and ambitious participants. Luckily, this time it was no different 🙂”
And this one:
“We left with new knowledge about happiness at work and we were given precise tools we can use right away to make Tooploox employees happier.”
AWESOME! We do the conference to give people around the world the knowledge and tools they need to create happier and more successful workplaces, so we were really happy to read this.
And our 2018 conference will be even better. See the full program here.
We finally got a chance to visit Ben and Jerry’s global HQ in Vermont and it was AWESOME. Not only did we get to hear about the company’s mission to create a better world, see how the ice cream is made and visit the famous flavor graveyard – we even saw a man propose to his girlfriend in the middle of a tour. She said yes :)
Here are some impressions from our visit.
Proudly written on the walls: “Business has a responsibility to give back to the community.”
“If it’s not fun, why do it?”
The flavor graveyard is where Ben And Jerry’s celebrate their mistakes by honoring every ice cream flavor that failed. It looked very pretty in the snow. You can also find it online.
This is brilliant – instead of hiding or punishing their mistakes, they celebrate them. Here are 5 reasons why every workplace should do that.
All in all we got a very positive impression of the culture at Ben and Jerry’s. The employees we talked to clearly loved their jobs, they do their utmost to make great ice cream while protecting the environment and also have a mission to create “Linked prosperity” for their entire ecosystem, including suppliers, farmers and the local community. It’s inspiring to see a company so focused on creating a happier world, which is also why their mentioned in my latest book Leading With Happiness.
This awesome Southwest Airlines flight attendant turns her pre-flight safety announcement into a standup comedy act.
Some people think it’s easy for a small company to be happy but hard or impossible for larger organizations. Well, John Lewis Partnership (JLP), a British company that operates department stores and Waitrose Supermarkets is here to show that it is possible.
In fact, JLPs ultimate Purpose is “the happiness of all its members, through worthwhile and satisfying employment.”
They achieve this in part by making all employees co-owners (i.e. partners), by sharing profits and by running the company in a democratic way that encourages participation in decision making.
Jane Barnett-Roberts is JLP’s Head of Democratic Engagement meaning that she leads a dedicated team who ensure that partners’ opinions from around the Partnership are heard and continue to contribute to the overall happiness of Partners.
She will bring to life how the Partnership keeps this Purpose relevant and vibrant amongst its 85,000 Partners almost 100 Years after the business was first given away in trust to its employees.
One of the highlights of our 2009 conference on happiness at work was Dr. Srikumar S. Rao’s wonderfully inspiring and funny presentation which focused specifically on the two main traps we must avoid, that keep us from becoming happy. You can see the whole speech here.And if you like that speech, you should definitely not miss out on this year’s Happiness at Work Conference on May 17+18 in Copenhagen. It’s going to be awesome – 12 smart and passionate international speakers will show us exactly how to create happier and more successful workplaces.
The Olympic winter games this year offered an extremely rare event in sports history: An athlete won gold in two separate sports.
Czech snowboarder Ester Ledecka shocked everyone by winning gold on skis in the Super-G event and then went on to also win gold in snowboarding parallel giant slalom.
That’s amazing in itself, but what I love even more is her attitude towards her profession:
“For sure I want to win every race, but the first thing is to enjoy and to have good fun with what I’m doing and my sports.”
Her coach agrees, saying:
“The joy that she has for riding, the joy that she has for training and working hard is unmatched.”
What a refreshing change from the “Winning is all that matters” mentality.
