In the latest HRchat episode, we consider what it takes to achieve happiness at work. Tune in as we also share ways to better measure employee engagement.
My guest this time is Nic Marks, CEO and Founder of Friday Pulse. Nic was once described as a “Statistician with a Soul” because of his unusual combination of ‘hard’ statistical skills and ‘soft’ people skills, he draws on scientific evidence to show that everyone benefits when businesses take happiness seriously.
In 2018, Nic founded Friday Pulse an innovative tech business based in London to be the catalyst in changing the world of work for the better.
Nic was recently a speaker at Disrupt London 19.0. Check out the latest London chapter 5-minute lightning talks here.
Questions for Nic include:
- What does happiness at work mean to you?
- How did you get into measuring happiness? Can one measure happiness?
- Can employees ‘game’ a happiness test? After all, many employees wouldn’t want low engagement scores.
- What incentivizes employees and does that differ between generations/industries?
- Why does happiness at work matter?
- What are the big drivers of team happiness?
- If teams are happy, will they get complacent? Won’t they just slack off?
- You have a free happiness at work test at fridayone.com. Tell me more
More About Nic
Nic has been an advisor to the UK Government Office for Science on the Wellbeing Foresight Programme and has written over 20 publications. In 2010 Nic was invited to speak at the prestigious TED global conference. His TED talk has now been watched well over two million times, and he authored one of the original three TEDbooks, entitled ‘A Happiness Manifesto’. Nic was named as one of the Top Ten Original Thinkers by the UK’s Institute of Directors magazine and his work was listed as one of Forbes Magazine’s Seven Most Powerful Ideas in 2011.
Nic founded Friday Pulse in 2018 – a weekly science-led pulse that provides leaders with actionable data on their teams’ happiness, and is currently writing a book on why happiness is a serious business.