Working With Humans

The Happiness Index internal culture team of HR pro Laura Page, Co-Founder and technologist Tony Latter and Head of Neuroscience Clive discuss the impact of work life balance This is another area that has hugely been impacted by the pandemic and the digital revolution. With everyone carrying a phone with more computing power than the first spaceship that carried humanity to the moon it can be hard to balance our work and our private lives. Work life harmony covers whether or not people feel that they are in a state of reasonable balance in terms of juggling their work and personal /family commitments and emotional needs. Excessive work pressure will cause difficulties in personal relationships and will limit people’s capacity to recover their energy.

HR expert Phil Burgess sits down with Matt Phelan to discuss how Trust and Safety are key drivers of Employee Happiness People need to feel trust to be able to commit themselves emotionally to an organisation. They need to feel trusted and be able to trust those they work with. Our sensory intelligence system constantly surveys our environment and is very sensitive to factors such as tension, suppression, dishonesty, and insincerity, all of which are inhibitors to human expression and contribution.

HR expert, entrepreneur and author Natasha Wallace sits down with our host Matt Phelan to discuss how to create a work environment that drives employee happiness. People need to feel that their physical working environment is safe, that it poses no danger either in terms of conditions or access. It also includes emotional safety, such as freedom from bullying, prejudice or psychological abuse.

Head of People Nadia Vatalidis sits down to share her wisdom with our host Matthew Phelan who is co-founder of The Happiness Index. Nadia discusses her career in working in the fast pace tech world. Nadia shares insight from her career and her thoughts on building in public. This episode is wide ranging and covers a wide spectrum from inclusion through to advice on how best to support your people. This episode is packed with new ideas and practical advice on how to build a thriving workplace culture for your people.

Matt Phelan author of Freedom to be Happy the Business case for Happiness and Karen Robinson sit down to discuss the importance of feedback on employee happiness. Karen is a senior business leader with 15 years exp. Karen is a mentor, coach and trainer. Karen gives her expert view on how to give and receive feedback. Regular feedback is a vital component of emotional sustainability and growth. Getting timely and relevant levels of feedback, delivered with appropriate skill and care, can be a critical personal development opportunity, helping people to keep on track on their own meaningful journey.

Happiness and Humans Host Matt Phelan Interviews Global head of Diversity and Inclusion and Belonging at ISS on the importance of employees feeling listened to. When we express a thought or feeling it is important to us that our views are heard. This is a subtle, yet critical, experience that helps us understand our impact on the world. Not being listened to is a form of sensory deprivation that is emotionally destabilising and can make us feel unsure about who we are and whether we are important.

Our host and entrepreneur Matthew Phelan interview's employee recognition expert Simon Berry. Simon is one of the world's most respected and knowledgeable experts in both employee recognition and reward. Simon also helped design the Employee recognition impact Index that sits within The Happiness Index's Employee Engagement platform. Recognition informs us that we are doing things right, which in turn gives us a sense of emotional validation. This is not limited to more formalised recognition schemes and rewards, but is the much wider and richer tapestry of human to human acknowledgement expressed at an authentic interpersonal level.

Tech founders Matthew Phelan of The Happiness Index and Sultan Murad Saidov of Beamery sit down to discuss Sultan's journey from childhood to founding the  UK's latest tech unicorn.  Sultan Murad Saidov is Co-Founder and President of Beamery, the leading Talent Lifecycle Management Platform. Prior to Beamery, Sultan worked at Goldman Sachs.  He studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University of Oxford. Sultan is a frequent speaker on AI, the Future of Work, and Talent Transformation Beamery’s Talent Lifecycle Management platform allows enterprises to create more human experiences for all talent, and unlock the skills and potential of their global workforce. We help organizations identify and acquire top talent, move the needle on DE&I, close important skill gaps and retain top performers. Questions in this episode include; What makes you happy? Tell us about your childhood? What’s it like working with your brother?  Why did you start Beamery? Can you talk us through what it’s like letting

With layoffs being announced across the globe Walter Peterscheck felt compelled to share his story of being let go twice in his career. This episode is designed to help both the individual being let go and the company in how to do this in a supportive way.  Walter is motivated to help people being made redundant continue with their career and prosper. The last 3 years have been a tough struggle for many individuals and organisations alike. The financial strain has resulted in many layoffs being made and this episode is a learning opportunity for all of us. A huge shout to Walter for sharing his personal experience with the Happiness and Humans community.

Tim Lomas is a Research Affiliate at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University and the author of Translating Happiness- A Cross-Cultural Lexicon of Well-Being. His work has been featured in Time, the New Yorker, Vox, Scientific American, and the Atlantic. Tim discusses his new paper The Architecture of Happiness. Happiness is an increasingly prominent topic of interest across academia. However, relatively little attention has been paid to how it is created, especially not in a multidimensional sense. By ‘created’ we do not mean its influencing factors, for which there is extensive research, but how it actually forms in the person. The work that has been done in this arena tends to focus on physiological dynamics, which are certainly part of the puzzle. But they are not the whole picture, with psychological, phenomenological, and socio cultural processes also playing their part. As a result, this paper offers a multidimensional overview of scholarship on the ‘architecture’ of happiness, providing a s

Dr Hayley Lewis is on the HR Most Influential 2022. Hayley is a chartered psychologist, coach, University lecturer & Sketchnote doodler. Hayley describes herself as a pracademic making psychology accessible. Matt and Hayley discuss Happiness, HR and modern Psychology in the word of work

Matt Phelan and guest Laura Campbell discuss health, neuroscience, gut microbiota, food & nutrition, mental health, alcohol, mood & sleep. Laura discusses her own health journey that covers serious subjects such as anorexia, diet and the importance of getting the right information and advice on subjects related to your own health. This is a wide ranging conversation covering many areas related to our wellbeing and happiness. The conversation also focuses on how companies can help their employees focus on their wellbeing.

Kashi Chellen takes over as Happiness and Humans host to interview Matt Phelan on his TedX Brighton talk. The talk is titled 12 Million Lessons in Happiness. Matt uses a concept called The Super Happiness Suit with in built emotional deflector field to discuss what has been learnt from data collected by The Happiness Index via their Employee Engagement and Happiness Platform. The talk covers learning from 1 million human beings from over 100 countries.

Matt Phelan and Amanda Henwood discuss Amanda's research into subjective Well-being  Amanda's research focuses on exploring the links between well-being, cognition and behaviour.  Amanda uses a mixed methodological approach, combining field and lab experiments, to investigate potential well-being related mechanisms underpinning people’s responses to online cognitive and behavioural interventions, with a focus on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. To do this, Amanda draws upon insights from different disciplines including, psychology, computer science, human computer interaction and behavioural economics. Expertise Details Wellbeing; happiness; behaviour change; mental health; cognitive behavioural therapy; new technology

Matt Phelan from the Happiness Index an employee engagement and happiness platform sits down with Tracey Smith-Atkins, Robert Black & Alex Rowlands to discuss what it is like to work in a job where death is a daily part of the employee experience. We discover we can learn from this sector from the perspective of a CEO, HR professional and a Technology evangelist. 

Bianca Cefalo of Space DOTS sits down with Matthew Phelan to discuss entrepreneurship, happiness and new space. Bianca discusses her career, organisational culture, her co-founders and what it is like to be an entrepreneur in the space industry. BIO Space Scientist & Engineer Developing the next generation of telecommunications in space, and advocate for girls in STEM.

Melissa Thorpe is the inspirational Head of Spaceport Cornwall and sits down with the Co-Founder of the Happiness Index Matt Phelan. Melissa discusses her career, her leadership tips, how kindness is an important part of success and also gives insight on how to start a career in the Space industry. Melissa discusses her twin passions of nature and space and how they plan to run a UK space port that supports the local Cornish community by being considerate to their neighbours in Cornwall and the wider planet. This episode is packed with advice on how to rise to the top and still be a great human being by being an empathetic leader.

In this episode guest host Patrick Phelan who is a Happiness Index founding employee interviews Co-founder Matt Phelan on The Happiness Index's crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs. Pat asks Matt the following questions. What makes you happy? Why Seedrs? Why fundraising? What is crowdfunding? How does it work? Can people still get involved? What does the future of THI look like?  This episode is perfect for anyone looking to become an investor or for people trying to understand how crowdfunding platforms like Seedrs and Crowdcube help businesses raise cash to fund their growth plans. Capital at risk. You can find more details here on the campaign https://www.seedrs.com/the-happiness-index

Njabulo Mashigo Executive Director | International HR Executive | Non Executive Director of Vodacom part of the Vodafone family sits down with Matt Phelan to discuss everything from employee happiness through to how to build a successful career in HR.  Matt Phelan the Co-Founder of The Happiness Index and host of the Happiness and Humans podcast asks Njabulo the following questions.  What makes you happy? What is your number one career learning? What’s been your biggest mistake in your career? What tips do you have for someone starting a career in HR? How important is employee happiness to you?

Dan Sodergren shares his views on the future of work and his positive outlook on how we can all move towards a world where we love the work we do.