Bring Generosity to the Heart of Your Business
One of our trainers, Dhira Wiggins, has spent most of October and November providing free database support for local charities. He had been allocated to a two month database training project, and then the client cancelled – leaving Dhira with an empty diary.
It didn’t make sense, for him or for Happy, to have nothing to do so we emailed our charity clients asking if any needed some free help setting up or fixing a database (as this is Dhira’s speciality). It proved quite a popular offer and Dhira ended up providing support to eleven different charities, including.
Make Your People Happy, Like John Lewis Does
I often ask groups where they have found the best customer service. Two companies stand out and always come up: Apple and John Lewis. And when lists are published of the UK’s most admired businesses you can be sure that John Lewis is at or near the top. So I felt greatly honoured yesterday to be speaking alongside Charlie Mayfield, Chair of John Lewis (at Tomorrow’s Company “Tomorrow’s Value” event).
To Be Happy at Work, Be a Florist Not a Banker
One thing that is clear from the results is that working in a high pay profession doesn’t necessarily make you happy: There have been similar surveys before, especially in the USA. Myplan.com found Financial Analysts were bottom of a list of 300 professions for happiness, while singers and fire fighters came top. City and Guilds notes that those in vocationally-trained skills-based jobs are happier than those in academic-trained, office-based jobs.But the overwhelmingly happiest are the self-employed, those in full control of their work. This is released in the week that Richard Branson wrote that the best measure of business success is happiness. You won’t be surprised to know I agree with that! And I firmly believe, based on our experience working with a wide range of companies, that all workplaces could be happy. But, as with those happy self-employed, we need to give people control of their jobs and the trust and freedom to feel ownership and satisfaction. If banking focused more on making their people feel valued and motivated, and less on short-term financial gain, then maybe they would not just be better places to work but give better service to their customers too. I like to think that in that kind of culture scandals like PPI miss-selling might never have happened. Check out the Happy Manifesto or my list of 80 ideas for a happy workplace, if you want help making your organisation happier.
Twitter: It’s the Only Effective Way to Complain
Last Saturday I got an outraged call from my daughter: “Dad, the bank is stealing my money”. She had accidentally gone £9 into overdraft, the first time she had ever been overdrawn. Within a short time the charges had racked up to £135.
The Secret of Happiness: Meaning Not Money
If you have ever felt envy when you scan the Rich List or read about a millionaire (and, to be honest, who hasn’t?) then a recent discussion on Quora provides a useful antidote. Answering the question
“Is getting rich worth it?”
several very wealthy people described lives that do not sound enviable.
It Is Good to Apologise
Yesterday was Yom Kippur, the end (for Jews) of ten days of reflection when we are to make amends to anybody we have wronged over the last year. In our tradition it is not enough to confess your wrong-doings to God. Instead you must seek out the person wronged and try to make it right.
Paralympics Closing Speeches: A Masterclass
I loved the Paralympics closing ceremony, with the weird machines, the manic dancing and the general craziness. Coldplay were great too. But the surprise highlight was the closing speeches, fitting ends to these truly inspirational games.
Celebrating Diversity with the Olympics
I hope you are still feeling the feel-good factor, from the triumphs of Team GB to the celebration of diversity that is central to the Olympic Games. Joining in the fun, we have sought to find the most diverse organisation among our clients (and beyond), with a free course for a group of your staff as the prize. The question is:
How many countries are represented in your staff (with separate prizes for small and medium/large organisations)?
Excel Hints & Tips – Line Breaks in a Cell & Cell Formats
How to add a line break Sometimes you want to have text in one cell that is spilt into multiple lines. To do this you need to use the ALT + ENTER keyboard shortcut. What you end up with is something like this: A cell with multiple lines of text This is very similar to putting a soft return into a Word document except that, in Word, you use SHIFT + ENTER. How to remove or replace line breaks To remove a single line break, just put your cursor next to it and use either the delete key or the backspace key to remove it, then replace it with a space or other character. To remove a whole load of line breaks from within a worksheet you can use the ‘Find and Replace tool’. You’ll find this on the home tab, or you can use the CTRL + H keyboard shortcut. In the Find box type ALT + 010. (You must use the number pad, not the row of numbers along the top of the keyboard – on a laptop you may need to turn on the number pad overlay). Then in the Replace box type in a space, or whatever character you wish to use. Then hit Replace, or Replace All if you are feeling brave! Formatting cells with line breaks What you may not realise is that adding a line break automatically turns on text wrapping for this cell. If you check the cell formatting you will see that the Wrap Text option is ticked: Wrap Text option ticked (A quick way of getting into the formatting options for a cell is to use CTRL + 1.) If you turn off text wrapping, then the two lines will move together: Unwrapped text As you can see, this causes the test to either be truncated, or to spill out into the next cell if that cell is empty. You can try using the Shrink to fit option in the cell format pop-up, but this can cause the text to become too small to read: Text that has the Shrink to Fit option applied Related Blogs
Red Tape and Regulation is Not the Problem
I have run Happy Ltd now for 22 years and employ around 30 people. Three years ago we employed 35 but, as staff have left, we have turned to using freelancers instead of recruiting a permanent replacement. However this has nothing to do with how easy it is to dismiss permanent staff. We are turning to freelancers because, in the current market, we cannot be sure of the level of demand.
I have often been at events where fellow entrepreneurs and small business owners complain about red tape and employment law. Last time I asked the examples they gave were “the minimum wage”, “maternity pay” and even “holiday entitlement”. These are not unfair burdens. These are the basic requirements of running a decent business. I am delighted that we have regulations like this because it means decent businesses cannot be undercut by those prepared to do anything to make a buck.
