Happy International Day of Happiness! 🎉

There’s no better way to celebrate than exploring how happiness can make or break our workplace with insights from expert, Matt Phelan, co-founder of The Happiness Index.

In this enlightening episode of the Beyond the Water Cooler podcast, I chat with Matt about the intricate relationship between happiness and organisational growth.

Here's what we explore:

1. Happiness and Growth: Understand why Matt believes organisations cannot grow without happy employees, and the key to success.
2. Addressing Common Barriers: Learn about some of the main barriers organisations face in fostering a happy workforce and get practical advice on overcoming resistance within leadership teams.
3. The Power of Acknowledgment: Matt sheds light on the importance of personalised acknowledgment and why recognising individual employee contributions is crucial.
4. A Global Perspective: Gain insights from contrasting cultural approaches to raising happy communities.

Matt also shares his candid thoughts about the future of workplace culture and the pivotal role leaders play in maintaining a thriving, happy organisation.

Whether you’re a manager, business owner, or simply interested in organisational success, this episode is brimming with valuable takeaways. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to enhance your leadership skills and ensure your workplace is a hub of happiness and productivity.

Matt Phelan is a Co-Founder of The Happiness Index, a platform that helps organisations measure the key employee engagement AND happiness drivers to power their people strategy. In his day-to-day role, he's responsible for the strategic direction of the business.

Matt is the founder of The Happiness and Humans Community, host of The Happiness Index Podcast and author of Freedom To Be Happy: The Business Case for Happiness & The Happiness Index: Why Today's Employee Emotions Equal Tomorrow's Business Success"

Matt recently completed a TEDx talk where he presented 12 million data points on happiness from 1 million human beings in 100+ countries in less than 15 minutes.

LinkedIn: Matthew Phelan

Instagram: @matthewjphelan

X: @matthewphelan

Websites:

mattphelan.co.uk

www.thehappinessindex.com

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40 Activities Ranked by Happiness: Work Ranks 39th, Just Above Being Sick...

With Trump's very problematic attitude to women and DEI, is progress that's been made over the last 50 years about to do a massive U-turn?

In case you've somehow managed to avoid his comments, here is just one example (there are sooooo many)...

Talking about Kamala Harris during a Fox News appearance in September 2024, Trump said, "They put her in, and she somehow — a woman — somehow she's doing better than [President Joe Biden] did."

With comments like this from an 'authority' figure, just what do employers need to do to ensure they continue to benefit from all that women bring to the world of work?

Prisca Bradley joins me to share her perspective as an employment lawyer. She has brilliant insight that brings to life an essential discussion, turning ideology into practical action.

From recruitment, critical thinking development and training for leaders and managers, to empowering women to speak up and encouraging men to be active allies, this is a thought-provoking discussion. It's about psychology, geo-politics, ethics, performance and so much more.

Although we've recorded this for International Women's Day, this is a critical agenda that must be driven from the boardroom across the organisation, throughout all strategy and ops, across the employee lifecycle, 365 days a year.

Accelerate Action for gender equality.

How are YOU translating concepts into pragmatic practice?

Having been a solicitor and partner in private practice for several law firms. Prisca decided to set up her own consultancy in 2019 focussing on providing a blend of employment law advice and support and training to organisations and businesses primarily within the education, charity, technology and start-up sectors. She particularly enjoys supporting leaders and managers to develop their skills and working with organisations to create healthy working environments.

LinkedIn: Prisca Bradley

Website: www.bradleyemploymentconsulting.co.uk

Leadership Labs | It's Time for Change (itstimeforchange.co.uk)

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New Research: Women More Effective Than Men In All Leadership Measures (www.forbes.com)

Link to commentary on the rights of women survey: www.womensgrid.org.uk

Seb Randle Podcast Episode: Men: Developing Allies

Dr Shawn Andrews Podcast Episodes:

7 Superpowers of Women in the Workplace (Part 1)

Rosie Hawes is a business risk consultant who has worked in Russia, China and South Korea. In this conversation she brings a really interesting perspective to the challenges of managing people in different cultures.

Her experience really shines a light on the range of pressures facing different cultures, from misogyny and gossip, to the 'entitlement' of gen Z.

We explore the whether we need to accept or challenge practices that don't align with our values, particularly when they are perceived as some to be damaging.

Rosie helps us think about how to sustain high performance in teams that are made up of individuals from different cultures, or who may be operating overseas to us. Is it really that difficult?

It was fascinating hearing about some of Rosie's investigations and experiences and what she learnt about the diverse world of work. Find out for yourself. Listen to the podcast or watch on YouTube and meet Rosie's cat!

With a 20+ year career in risk and investigations spanning Russia, China and South Korea, Rosie Hawes brings a fascinating perspective on the challenges of being a foreign manager in a new environment and how to build a team of individuals from diverse backgrounds. Having supported multinational clients looking to expand in high risk jurisdictions, she shares her experience of the pitfalls firms fall into when expanding when failing to consider local fraud and corruption schemes, cultural nuances and even different concepts of trust.

LinkedIn: Rosie Hawes

Leadership Labs | It's Time for Change (itstimeforchange.co.uk)

Watch this episode on YouTube

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Email: lisa@itstimeforchange.co.uk