Happiness Has No Borders

Working at The Happiness Index has many positives. Building relationships with great quokkas (colleagues), learning new things everyday and helping work cultures via our platform be just that little bit better than they were yesterday.

Another benefit, which is role modelled by our founders, is that it encourages and fully supports different ways of doing things. Last year I decided to take full advantage of the ‘different’ bit and grasp a new adventure. This came in the form of relocating and working from Toronto. Having a spouse who hails from the land of maple does come in handy too. 

A change in habitat meant a change in role also made sense. With our core market and base to date, now in a different time zone, taking up a more global responsibility not only made sense but was an opportunity too good not to grasp.

In my nearly 9 years at The Happiness Index as we have scaled from start-up to grown up, my roles have varied but they have always had a customer element at its heart. That aspect will remain to an extent, but I will be working more closely with our partners all over the globe, helping them reach and power-up culture focussed leaders and the organisations they are responsible for.

Naturally, wherever they might be in the world, we attract people who really care about their colleagues and who have a laser focussed commitment to making time at work greater. Contributing towards that never gets tiresome and it's a real source of joy when you see their hard efforts being rewarded. It’s a key motivator for us all and drives our purpose. 

That’s a seamless segue to mention my brother’s new book ‘The Happiness Index: Why Today's Employee Emotions Equal Tomorrow's Business Success.’ The below excerpt from it helps to support the importance of meaning in our work.

“The pandemic awoke people to the fact, as Oliver Burkeman put it, that if we live to 80, we only have 4,000 weeks on this planet, Your employees have had time to contemplate this fact and it is why now more than ever helping your employees understand the purpose of your organisation is key to helping them feel engaged and happy.“ 

How we feel and think about work, with the above a perfect example, all stems from neuroscience which is at the heart of everything we do at The Happiness Index. “Our purpose in life and work is associated with the direction system of our brain. It is partly why, when people feel they don’t have a purpose, they describe it as being lost in life. Purpose is key to direction and our brains need it to function in a high performance way”.

As any good football (other sports are available) coach will tell you, you’ve got to give them, the team, a reason to run. A strong purpose will do that.

We have lots of exciting things planned here and being a part of that is a great privilege. Feel free to get in touch if you’d like to discuss all things employee happiness and engagement related. I’d also be happy to share my beginner's thoughts on Tim Hortons, hockey, butter tarts, poutine and snow shovel season.

Pat