The Power of Dreams: Rachel Law from PossAbilities
In this talk from the 2023 Happy Workplaces Conference, Rachel talks about the power of dreams to create a happy workplace, and motivating and retaining staff in a notoriously difficult sector. Rachel discusses the importance of trust, listening to staff and linking with local communities, as well as gardens, a miniature Shetland pony, holidays, and Duvet Days.
Building a Culture of Trust at CoppaFeel!
Natalie Haskell is the CEO of CoppaFeel!. CoppaFeel! is a renowned breast health awareness charity with a commitment to enabling happy workplace ideas. Natalie has fostered a unique culture with CoppaFeel! where the ways of working are designed to support productivity and individual needs.
In this entertaining talk from the 2023 Happy Workplaces Conference, Natalie shares how her enthusiasm for implementing a four-day working week turned to disappointment and how she worked with her team to bring about a solution that worked for everyone.
Liz Wiseman: What are Impact Players and Why are They Important to Your Organisation?
Liz Wiseman is the CEO of The Wiseman Group, a talent development and research organisation in Silicon Valley, California. Liz is also the author of bestsellers Multipliers and Impact Players, and is consistently rated by Thinkers50 as a top ranked thinker.
In her book Impact Players, Liz identifies two types of people: Ordinary Contributors and Impact Players, and noted that there were five practices that differentiated the Impact Players from the Ordinary Contributors. In this video, from the 2022 Happy Workplaces Conference, Liz tells us more about the concept and takes us through the five characteristics of Impact Players.
Andrew Barnes: Why the 4 Day Week is the Future of Work
Andrew Barnes is the head of New Zealand’s biggest corporate trust company, Perpetual Guardian, but he’s probably better known as the father of the four-day week movement. Andrew trialled the four-day week at Perpetual Guardian in 2018, despite a lot of fear and opposition from his board and management team. It was a resounding success and has grown into a movement with unprecedented momentum.
In this video from the 2022 Happy Workplaces Conference, Andrew explores some of the data supporting the four-day working week and challenges you to think about how it would work in your organisation.
Creating a Culture of Leadership Development
Kevin McCoy and Chris Hannay, of US e-commerce company Next Jump, understand the importance of investing in leadership development for getting to Beyond Budgeting. The culture at Next Jump is built around helping people with situational judgments, and the organisation’s investment in its people has led to revenue growth and business transformation.
In this talk at the 2017 Beyond Budgeting Conference, Kevin and Chris explain how to navigate the “lying, hiding, faking” problem and how investing in your people gets you to Beyond Budgeting.
Read the transcript and watch Kevin and Chris’ full talk below.
Ambition to Action: The Equinor Beyond Budgeting Journey
Bjarte Bogsnes has worked in finance and HR at Norwegian energy company Equinor (previously known as Statoil) for over 35 years. He’s witnessed rapid growth during that time, with the company now operating in 36 countries.
Bjarte is also the Chairman at the Beyond Budgeting Institute. His beyond budgeting journey started back in 1995, a time when the concept was still largely unheard of.
In his talk at the 2017 Beyond Budgeting Conference, Bjarte explains how it’s possible to hang onto the flexibility of a small organisation without losing the benefits of being big.
Read the transcript and watch Bjarte’s full talk below.
Be specific with your values if you want to stand out
Dom Monkhouse developed the UK divisions of the web-hosting businesses, Rackspace and Peer 1. His primary goal has always been to boost an organisation’s total revenue, which depends on having an engaged workplace. He also believes companies need to be explicit about their values in order to stand out.
In this three-minute clip from the 2017 Happy Workplaces CEO Conference, Dom explains why this is so essential and why not doing so means an organisation will just end up being beige.
3 v 45: The three most important things I’ve learned about culture change
Over a 25 year career, Isabelle Trowler has worked within children and family services across local government, the civil service, the voluntary sector, and for her own organisation. The roles have taught her a great deal about resilience, remaining upbeat, and facing hard challenges.
Isabelle became the chief social worker for Children and Families in 2013. The title of her talk at the 2017 Creating Happy Workplaces in the Public Sector Conference—“3 versus 45”— refers to her general tendency to speak about 45 things. For this talk, Isabelle sought to condense the lessons she’s learned into three main points she thinks everyone should take on board.
Read the transcript and watch Isabelle’s full talk below.
Why you should give responsibility to frontline practitioners
Isabelle Trowler has been working within children and family services for 25 years, and it hasn’t always been easy. She’s had to consistently rail against the imposed procedures and rules that inhibit children’s social care workers.
In this four minute clip from the 2017 Creating Happy Workplaces in the Public Sector Conference, Isabelle explains what happened when she started to delegate the decision-making as close to the frontline as possible.
Build a business, create a great culture, win awards and make a profit
Dominic Monkhouse knows life is short and he doesn’t want to waste it. Dom developed the UK divisions of the web-hosting businesses, Rackspace and Peer 1, and tried to make them exciting places to work by giving employees freedom within clear guidelines and heeding the “recruit for attitude, train for skill” precept.
Dom’s acutely aware of how little time we have to make a difference. In his talk at the 2017 Happy Workplaces CEO conference, Dom poses the question, “What are you going to make a difference in? Who with?”
Read the transcript and watch Dom’s full talk below.
