Lord Mark Price with a copy of his book outside the House of Lords
Happiness at work matters. But what does happiness mean? How can managers measure it and have more of it? And what happens to organizations when they get happiness right?
Ask anyone. Happiness and wellbeing are important for all organizations, because they undeniably lead to economic happiness and financial success for everyone involved. But how does happiness drive growth and how should business leaders develop happier companies?
In Happy Economics, founder of WorkL and former MD of Waitrose, Mark Price clearly demonstrates why the opportunity represented by happiness is huge for businesses. He explains why happiness at work is important and explores the proven links between happiness and financial success, how to recruit happy employees and develop the right teams by being transparent and diverse and illustrates why the role of leadership in delivering the right tone of voice and driving a happy workplace is crucial.
Speaking at the launch of his book at the House of Lords, Mark Price said: “The book for me feels like the completion of a circle. 42 years ago I started as a graduate trainee at the John Lewis Partnership. On my very first days in Southampton, I was told by the then Managing Director that the supreme purpose of the John Lewis Partnership is the happiness of the people that work there. And that comes as a bit of a shock to me on day one when you are told that you are there for the happiness of the people in the organisation. And this was set out by the person who founded it over 100 years ago because he believed that if his employees were happy, they are less likely to leave, they’re less likely to take sick absence, they’re going to work harder, they’re going to give more and my customers are going to get better service. Therefore, in the long run, we’re going to have a better business. So I was very fortunate to spend 34 years trying to work out in a very practical sense what does it mean to be happy at work?
“And then after my time in Government, I built the WorkL platform and we get around 10,000 individuals each week going to take our free Happy at Work Test and we now have lots of data on over 100,000 organisations globally but we also work with companies and we run the Sunday Times Best Companies List and we do that now in five other countries. We also work with a number of individual companies on supporting them on their journey with their people and their happiness. The consequence of this is that we have a huge amount of data over six years and what this book does, it pulls together all of that data but also all the qualitative information that I gleamed at my time at Waitrose about methodology and how it works and my book conclusively confirms that those companies with happy employees have lower levels of staff turnover, lower levels of staff sickness, higher levels of productivity and their customers get better service.”
Speaking about the new title, Christopher Cudmore, Publishing Director, said: “We’re excited and proud to be publishing this book that tackles the vital subject of happiness at work. This topic is more important now than ever and we’re thrilled to partner with WorkL, the experts behind the Sunday Times Best Places to Work list. Together, we aim to inspire real, positive changes in workplace wellbeing and business success.”
To buy a copy of Happy Economics, click here
