Happy Work: How To Create A Culture Of Happiness

For over thirty years, I’ve been honored to serve some of the best brands in the world as a consultant and strategic advisor. During that time, I’ve seen highly respected CEOs, leaders, and managers launch, with the very best of intentions, “quality of work life” initiatives. These leaders rightly believed that happy employees were better employees, and they sought to make changes that would fulfill those conditions. Regrettably, despite their high expectations, these programs nearly always failed. The metrics they were designed to improve—productivity, employee engagement, and even company profitability—didn’t budge. It was as if nothing had been done.

My consulting firm, LeaderLogic, LLC has become something of an organizational hazmat team, tasked with cleaning up after yet another ineffective quality of work life initiative. But failure is the best teacher, and over time, based on my experience with these organizations, I’ve formulated powerful solutions that really work. The lessons I’ve learned are presented in the pages of this book. I’ll share with you how to avoid the common pitfalls and how to leverage new best practices that provide predictable, measurable returns on your happiness initiative. You will also discover the corollary between happy customers, sales growth, and innovation in the furtherance of happy employees.

I will share with you why you should avoid the vast survey industry, and how to get real insights about what your employees want and need in order to build a workplace that your competitors will envy. Your newly forged happiness initiative will attract and keep the best talent in your marketplace, drive the best innovations, build scalable and predictable revenue growth, and significantly improve the returns on your organizational strategies.

This book contains both deep research and thirty years of practical experience. It is my sincere hope that you will leverage these insights to avoid the common mistakes and enjoy the benefits of proven methods that deliver real results. If applied properly with the correct infrastructure and training, your organization will achieve some or all of the following benefits:
• Attract and keep the best talent in your market.
• Significant increases in employee productivity and presentism.
• Reduced workforce stress and healthcare costs.
• Improved returns on enterprise strategy.
• Major improvements in customer experience.
• Predictable and measurable increases in revenue.
• Improvements and cost reduction and efficiency.
• Predictable improvements and innovation.

We live in challenging times. All over the world, employees of companies large and small are questioning their career choices. Instead of taking their life path for granted and settling for what society offers them, many are asking, “Is this all there is? Why should I commute to a boring or distasteful job with little future, just to pay my mortgage? I want to do something that has meaning to me. I want to get up and go to work with a smile on my face.”

The Great Resignation served as a wake-up call. Today, the best companies have to compete for the best employees, and it’s not just about the size of the paycheck, it’s about performing meaningful work that creates value. I wrote this book to give every company—your company—a road map to relevance and competitiveness, and to help make "Happy Work" a reality.