We’ve been doing some happiness work. What? Yes, we realise it sounds a bit glib and try hard, but understanding the happiness of our hard working team and what drives them is incredibly important to us.
We know that happiness in the workplace leads to greater engagement and a more thriving culture. Gone are the days when happiness, at least for lawyers, meant a late night with some beers and pizza. Happiness for us is about our meaning and purpose. We want our team to come into work inspired and committed to our values, so that we can provide the best service to our clients but also the right working conditions and practices for everyone.
We wanted to ask if our team was really happy. What did they think? Did they buy our values, live them or are they lip service? This was tested against questions such as do our staff feel safe, free to be themselves, happy in their relationships with their peers, supported and enabled to do their work? It’s all very well introducing a table tennis table but the reason we tested against these measures was because they are all feelings, which are sometimes harder to judge.
Luckily, we came out quite well. In a couple of years we have built a culture that is positive and encouraging and above the global benchmark. We’re not going to brag about our scores because in a way they aren’t that important, but the sentiment of them is. Our staff feel trusted, they feel safe and free and feel that their personal growth is being taken seriously. And we’ve started to put into practice some of the ideas that came up as part of the happiness exercise, such as creating ways to give feedback, more regular check-ins and more sharing if work is taking over. One area we have also introduced is yoga in the workplace.
It’s well proven that yoga at work not only helps to motivate staff and create bonds, but it can also create more energy, mental agility and space for creative thinking. That’s why we love it. We kind of love being put into complex positions that we need to find a way out of, and yoga is no different.
Happiness is just one way that we are creating a great working environment and you’ll hear more in our first impact report that will be published soon.
