5 Questions With Peter Cheese of CIPD

Peter Cheese is the CEO of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). CIPD is the professional body for HR and people development. It is career partners to more than 140,000 members around the world, giving them the support they need to make a real impact on the work and working lives of the people and organisations they work with. Through its research, CIPD provides a point of view on creating that impact in the context of the rapidly changing world of work. We spoke to Peter Cheese about how he has helped to create an engaged and happy workplace.

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1. Tell me a bit about yourself.

I am married with 3 girls (2 Gen Y and 1 Gen Z who give me first-hand insight into the next generation’s views), and I have a wide range of interests from Chelsea FC to astronomy.

2. What’s your top tip for creating a happy and engaged workplace?

Trust and support your people, give them space, listen to them, inspire them around the vision and purpose. If you take care of the things they care about, they’ll take care of the things you care about.

3. Could you give me one example of how people responded to greater trust?

Didn’t walk away but took up the challenge and then thrived.

4. What have you done to create a culture of trust at your organisation?

Try to listen, to share and be open, to encourage collaboration.

5. Could you give me an example of what you’ve done to give staff greater freedom and autonomy?

Engage them on major projects and programmes of change so they have voice and agency.

Learn the 10 core principles to create a happy and productive workplace in Henry Stewart's book, The Happy Manifesto.

Support your aspiring and current managers to be empowering and confident leaders with Happy

Happy offers leadership programmes at Level 3, Level 5 and Level 7, from new managers/supervisor level all the way up to senior leadership teams and CEOs. These programmes are based on the ideas of trusting your people. They are practical and based on applying what yo’ve learnt. We aim to inspire and ignite change in your organisation, as well as giving you valuable management skills such as business strategy, decision-making, negotiation and project management.

We also offer programmes tailored specifically to people from Global Majority backgrounds. The content is the same, but have been designed to give new and experienced managers the skills they need to navigate organisational culture with a clearer perspective on their own potential, as well as building their confidence and expanding their professional strengths.

Claire Lickman

Claire is Head of Marketing at Happy. She has worked at Happy since 2016, and is responsible for Happy’s marketing strategy, website, social media and more. Claire first heard about Happy in 2012 when she attended a mix of IT and personal development courses. These courses were life-changing and she has been a fan of Happy ever since. She has a personal blog at lecari.co.uk.