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Yes, there is a company in the UK called Happy. Yes, they’re happy :o)
We went to London last week and had a chance to visit the Happy HQ and meet with their managing director Cathy Busani to hear more about what makes them a great workplace.
Here’s a short video with Cathy:
And there’s much more. At Happy, employees can also choose their own bosses, they help make all major decisions, all bonuses are divided equally – just to give you some examples.
Cathy will talk much more about thisat our conference about happiness at work in Copenhagen in May. Read all about it here.
I’ll be speaking at the WorldBlu Live conference on May 19 and 20 in San Francisco, an event that promises to be absolutely amazing and inspiring.
The theme for the event is democracy at work, ie. how do you create workplaces that are based on freedom rather than on command and fear. There are two reasons why this interests me: First of all, my company is run democratically. I can truly imagine no other way to do it. Secondly, democratic workplaces are happier workplaces. When you grant employees trust, autonomy and freedom to make decisions, there is a much bigger chance that they will be happy at work.
Traci Fenton, the founder and CEO of WorldBlu, spoke at our conference in Copenhagen in 2009 and you can watch her presentation here:
Read all about the WorldBlu conference and sign up for it here.
Three weeks ago I was in India to speak at the World HRD Congress in Mumbai and my speech was very well received – here’s some sample feedback:
“Your presentation was the best I’ve seen in 20 years in HR.”
“It was really great listening to your talk. I have implemented a lot of it in my life and I can already feel a huge difference.”
“Alexander Kjerulf was the rock star in the World HRD congress this year. He mesmerized participants from 79 countries with a simple yet powerful approach to create a happy work place.”
And India absolutely needs more happiness at work. Not that workplaces there are particularly bad, it’s just that the war for talent is still going strong. While the financial crisis has given many western workplaces an excuse to stop focusing on happiness at work, Indian workplaces are facing some stark realities:
In short, Indian workplaces are doing their best to attract the best people, keep them in the workplace and help them perform optimally. The problem is that they’re doing all the wrong things, ie. things like wellness initiatives, bonuses, pay raises, promotions, etc. While there’s nothing wring with any of this, it simply isn’t what makes employees happy at work – at most it makes them satisfied.
In my speech, I tried to focus on what really does make people happy at work – and therefore more likely to stay in the workplace, more likely to do their best work and more likely to try to convince acquaintances, friends and family to also work there. And it seemed to really ring a bell.
So thanks to everyone who attended my presentation and a great big thank you to all the cool inspiring people I met at
Here are some pics from my speech
Ever get the feeling that you’re the only person in your workplace who displays any energy what so ever? Does it maybe feel a little something like this?
Have a happy weekend :o)
A lot of self-help advice advocates faking happiness, in order to become happy. If you’re in a bad mood, you should pretend to be happy, and that will make you happier for real. You should force a smile, force yourself to focus on the positive, chat with others in a friendly way or similar.
It’s often called “fake it till you make it”.
I honestly don’t believe that’s how it works, and now there’s some evidence to support this view:
…scientists tracked a group of bus drivers for two weeks, focusing on them because their jobs require frequent, and generally courteous, interactions with many people.
The scientists examined what happened when the drivers engaged in fake smiling, known as “surface acting”…
After following the drivers closely, the researchers found that on days when the smiles were forced, the subjects’ moods deteriorated and they tended to withdraw from work. Trying to suppress negative thoughts, it turns out, may have made those thoughts even more persistent.
So what does work? Finding actual (you might say real) reasons to be happy:
…on days when the subjects tried to display smiles through deeper efforts — by actually cultivating pleasant thoughts and memories — their overall moods improved and their productivity increased.
So if you’re having a crappy day at work don’t just fake happiness – find reasons to be happy. And if that doesn’t work, go ahead and have a crappy day. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that and we all do it regularly.
Now, if you have a crappy month, on the other hand…
The latest issue of Canadian Business has an article about touching in the workplace featuring yours truly. They cite NBA teams as one example:
A study last year linked touch to team performance in the NBA. After examining every hug, high–five and shoulder bump delivered by professional basketball players during the 2008–2009 season, the researchers found a correlation between high levels of physical contact and game success. The findings, which controlled for such factors as skill level and league ranking, were significant enough to garner a call from Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets (who holds an MBA).
And then they bring in the big guns :-)
Encouraging employees to touch each would seem to be an obvious HR minefield, at least at first glance. But Alexander Kjerulf, a Danish workplace consultant, hopes the Berkeley study will convince more managers to loosen up. Kjerulf helps clients, ranging from IBM to Ikea, to create happier office environments, which in turn can lead to lower absenteeism and turnover, and improved productivity. He points out that the No. 1 source for happiness at work is not related to the job per se. Research shows employees are most content when they have good relationships with their bosses and co–workers. And Kjerulf insists the best relationships come from being natural. “We are pack animals,” he adds, “and not touching each other is not natural.”
I wrote about this previously, and one commenter contributed this story:
I once worked for a bank in Germany (well these are two locations in which you would not normally expect “personal affection” ;-)).
The team was large, about 40 people worked in one open space office. It surprised me a lot that every morning, whoever arrived, walked through the whole office and greeted everybody with a handshake and some personal words. It did not matter if the team members came, the bosses from higher up or anybody from another department. It was known everywhere that here you greet everybody personally.
For the first week, I found that very strange and a bit intimidating. Also, it cost a lot of time all in all. Yet afterwards, I really enjoyed it. It gave everybody the chance to get to know the colleagues a bit better, to hear what they are off to or to realize that somebody is not in or just returned from a trip or vacation. There was no need to e-mail weekly lists on who is out when. We just knew it.
Btw, when I moved on to another job, I sort of missed it.
Simple – effective – makes a difference.
What’s the attitude to touching in your workplace? What would you like it to be? What does a hand shake, high-five or even a hug in the workplace do for you?
I’m back from my 4-day trip to India where I spoke at the World HRD Congress in Mumbai (and did a really, REALLY good job). I’ll be blogging about it soon.
Meanwhile, My friend Lars Pind pointed me to this video of Yvon Chouinard talking about how he founded Patagonia and some of the unusual policies they have, including setting all employees free to surf whenever they want:
I’ve set the video above to start at my favorite place, but if you can, take an hour and watch the whole thing.
Here’s how Yvon summed it up in a previous interview:
I’m a businessman, but I’m still going to do things on my own terms. I’m going to break a lot of rules, and we’re going to blur the distinction between work and play.
So we have a policy here – it’s called “Let My People Go Surfing.” A policy which is, when the surf comes up, anybody can just go surfing. Any time of the day, you just take off and go surfing…
That attitude changes your whole life. If your life is set up so that you can drop anything when the surf comes up, it changes the whole way you do your life. And it has changed this whole company here.
Are you free to plan your own time where you work? Or are you locked into working whenever it suits the workplace – not you? What would it mean to you, if you were completely free to plan your own time?
Will this poor Japanese tourist ever get his ice cream? Only one way to find out:
But the ice cream man certainly looks like he’s happy at work :o)
I just spent some time updating our client list and it gave me a pressing need to brag :o)
So here’s a partial list of just a few of our clients:
Not bad for a small consulting company out of Copenhagen, huh?
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