To Be Happy at Work, Be a Florist Not a Banker

Hi, we are Happy

We are leading a movement to create happy, empowered and productive workplaces.

How can we help you and your people to find joy in at least 80% of your work?

Keep informed about happy workplaces

Sign up to Henry's monthly Happy Manifesto newsletter, full of tips and inspiration to help you to create a happy, engaged workplace.

One thing that is clear from the results is that working in a high pay profession doesn’t necessarily make you happy:

Happiest Professions: Florist, gardener, hairdresser, plumber
Unhappiest professions: Bankers, IT workers, HR staff

There have been similar surveys before, especially in the USA. Myplan.com found Financial Analysts were bottom of a list of 300 professions for happiness, while singers and fire fighters came top.

City and Guilds notes that those in vocationally-trained skills-based jobs are happier than those in academic-trained, office-based jobs.But the overwhelmingly happiest are the self-employed, those in full control of their work.

This is released in the week that Richard Branson wrote that the best measure of business success is happiness. You won’t be surprised to know I agree with that! And I firmly believe, based on our experience working with a wide range of companies, that all workplaces could be happy. But, as with those happy self-employed, we need to give people control of their jobs and the trust and freedom to feel ownership and satisfaction.

If banking focused more on making their people feel valued and motivated, and less on short-term financial gain, then maybe they would not just be better places to work but give better service to their customers too. I like to think that in that kind of culture scandals like PPI miss-selling might never have happened.

Check out the Happy Manifesto or my list of 80 ideas for a happy workplace, if you want help making your organisation happier.

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.

Henry Stewart

Henry is founder and Chief Happiness Officer of Happy Ltd, originally set up as Happy Computers in 1987. Inspired by Ricardo Semler’s book Maverick, he has built a company which has won multiple awards for some of the best customer service in the country and being one of the UK’s best places to work.

Henry was listed in the Guru Radar of the Thinkers 50 list of the most influential management thinkers in the world. “He is one of the thinkers who we believe will shape the future of business,” explained list compiler Stuart Crainer.

His first book, Relax, was published in 2009. His second book, the Happy Manifesto, was published in 2013 and was short-listed for Business Book of the Year.

You can find Henry on LinkedIn and follow @happyhenry on Twitter.