Happy is Now an Accredited Living Wage Employer

It is Living Wage Week, where the Living Wage movement is celebrating over 15,000 accredited members who are devoted to going above and beyond for their staff by paying them a real Living Wage. In order to qualify for the Living Wage Certification, the company applying needs to be verified by the Living Wage Foundation to commit to fair pay and good quality of life for their staff, ensure that they are paying a Living Wage to all directly employed staff as well as sub-contracted staff and show a responsibility as an employer to the people employed to the company.

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Happy is proud to announce that our company is one of these 15,000, dedicated to ensuring that our employees are paid fairly for their work and are able to live within the areas that they are living. The Cost of Living has continued to increase in recent years, so committing to pay a real Living Wage can make all the difference when it comes to being able to afford to live comfortably.

Being recognised and accredited shows that we are dedicated to ensuring that our employees come first at Happy and we want to pay them accordingly. We have seen plenty of studies that show that happy employees make for a more profitable workplace, so ensuring that our employees are paid fairly for their time fits right in with the Happy Manifesto.

We have found that when members of staff are being paid low-wages, unable to keep up with bills let alone spending on luxury items so that they can relax, has created low moods and quality in work. When paying your employees in a way that they can not only survive but have a fulfilling life outside of work has been shown to increase performance within companies. It’s also just the right thing to do in order to be fair to the people working for you.

We feel that the Living Wage Foundation’s statement: “The Living Hours accreditation is a practical way to tackle in-work poverty, building on the foundation of the Living Wage and ensuring that everyone has the secure working hours they need to thrive.”

Currently, there is a new Employment Rights Bill that is set to be introduced, which will include new minimum requirements when it comes to looking after employees, which should hopefully encourage more businesses to think of their employees and see how successful they can be when they are paid a fair wage.

Related resources

Creating Joy at Work: 501+ ideas for a happy workplace — In this new book, Henry Stewart shows how you can put the principles of The Happy Manifesto into practice with this list of over 500 practical ideas (free download)
Happy on Sunday Times Best Places to Work list — To be successfully accredited as a Sunday Times Best Place to Work, organisations must achieve a minimum 70% overall engagement score – and Happy achieved 96%.

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.