Working With Humans

Lewis Wedlock is an Activist, academic & Social Psychologist. As one of the UK's youngest lecturers, Lewis' work centers around exploring and challenging structures that limit expression. We discuss Lewis’s views on Toxic masculinity.

Creative Jason Lancaster discusses how reading the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwel changed the way he looked at the world forever. Following a chance visit to a remote Scottish Island Jason uprooted his London life and now lives full time among the sheep and crystal clean blue ocean. We discuss the impact of this move on his career, happiness and performance. This episode will make you stop and listen to your emotions. This is a story about the Isle of Tiree, this is a story about career happiness.

Matt Phelan Co-Founder and Co-CEO of the Happiness Index sits down with Ben RainforthGott Ben is a Strategic Group HR Director. He has extensive international HR & business transformation through optimisation of agile, commercial, and adaptive HR functions, A strategic thinker & agile operator with substantial experience in all facets of Human Resource management and proven expertise in business change and transformation. Ben is also hilarious and shares his wonderful story and life lessons with the Happiness and Humans audience. A must listen for all HR professionals.

Karen Robinson Founding Director of The Flockist sits down with Matt Phelan the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of The Happiness Index to discuss Karen's mission to rebrand leadership. Karen will help you find your voice in the workplace and make a difference without compromising your values or falling over with stress. In this episode of Happiness and Humans Matt asks Karen the following questions; What makes you happy? Why does leadership need a rebrand? Who do you work with? Why is feedback important? How to give and receive feedback?

Leadership expert Steve Rush and Co-Founder of The Happiness Index Matt Phelan sit down to discuss Leadership. Steve helps people and teams explore new ways of working, new behaviours and processes through learning by unlocking their AH-HA moments. Matt asks Steve the following questions What makes you happy? Do the fiance sector care about their employees? How did your Leadership podcast go so crazy? What is the The Leadership Cake? What is leadership? Is leadership nature or nurture?

Kate Druhan head of community and environment at the Green School Bali joins Matthew Phelan Co-Founder and Co-CEO The Happiness Index to discuss What is a Green School? Does the school consider the happiness of students important? Do you think nature has a role to play in happiness? What can the world of work learn from what you have learnt at the Green School so far? Green School's mission is a 'Community of learners making our world sustainable'​ and is so much more than a school - it is a community where all members - students, staff, parents, volunteers and the surrounding community - come to learn and engage in various social enterprises, such as Green School's innovation hub (makers space), Kembali (Green School's resource management centre) to help build and educate on sustainable solutions for the future.  Green School's tailor-made campus includes beautiful wall-less bamboo classrooms, specifically designed to encourage play, creativity, collaboration and facilitate learning.

The Co-Founders of The Happiness Index Tony Latter, Chris Hyland and Matt Phelan sit down to review the year and discuss what could have gone better, what went well and their ambitions for 2022.

Adam Shaikh helps us unbox mental health and ethnicity. Adam helps draw the line between mental health and ethnicity and shows us why that is important from personal experience but also my macro data.  Studies show Black, Asian and other ethnic minorities reported a 14% deterioration in their mental health from April 2017 to April 2020; for whites it was 6.5% The numbers are even more harrowing when you look deeper. A study from Mind shows that for every white person with schizophrenia, there are nearly three Asian and five Black people Covid-19 has exacerbated these issues. The death rate amongst people of colour in English hospitals has been 2.5 times higher than their white counterparts. Adam says "Stuck between a rock and a hard place you can feel culturally homeless, like an incomplete jigsaw puzzle. For me, the dysphoria of being half Indian, half Bengali, wholly British yet unilingual brought me to this juncture. For most of my life I have felt Asian amongst Brits and British amongst Asians

Andrew discusses his mission to End Career Based Misery. Andrew a career experts talks openly about getting fired and how it was the best thing that happened to him. Matt and Andrew discuss tips for your career and how you can become happy in your career and life. Andrew describes himself as a Father, Career Coach, Guinness lover, Business Advisor, Speaker, Author, Founder, Positivity Dispenser and Official LinkedIn Changemaker for Careers and Unemployment.

Matt Phelan and Fiona McDonnell sit down to discuss Fiona's new book 'Two Mirrors and a Cheetah: Think Differently, Own Your Career & Succeed by Being Yourself'. Two Mirrors and a Cheetah will help you to challenge the assumptions and choices that hold you back, and inspire you to find real career fulfilment just by being yourself. Providing insights, examples and simple exercises, this book will equip you to: Understand and showcase your unique capabilities Identify the contexts that help you to thrive Recognise and successfully navigate change Deal with challenges like the ‘bad’ manager, the job hunt and the promotion Define your own work-life rhythm

Matt Phelan from The Happiness Index and Emily Cummin from Untangle ( https://l.linklyhq.com/l/d6Z9 ) discuss how to support employees through times of bereavement. This discussion covers What typically happens after a loss? How can employers help? How to support managers who have some in their team who has a bereavement ? What can managers and leaders do to support people? What to do and say? Returning to work after a bereavement, incongruous feelings when a loved one dies and the importance of having a bereavement policy at work.

Chief People officer Steven Bianchi and Matt Phelan discuss the concept of HR Debt in high growth businesses. Steven explains the difference between scaling and growing. Steven also answers; Does money change culture? Can you build culture in a fast growth environment, how to deal with with Hyper growth, how to deal with resource dis-economies of scale as your team expands and how to deal with the challenges that hyper growth & funding can bring to the people team. 

Matt and Sope discuss the power of learning and the importance of the people you consciously surround yourself with.

Entrepreneur Dominic McGregor at 21 co-founded the Manchester-based social media marketing agency Social Chain and helped grow it to a $200m turnover business with 750 staff in offices all around the world. Dom was one of the first people to hire a happiness manager to help support his growing business. Having floated Social Chain Dom has now exited the business to start the next stage of his career and he sits down with Matt Phelan to answer the following questions. What makes you happy Dom? How important is personal brand in business and can you lose yourself? How can we be aware of addictions like social media and alcohol? Is university still a good option for young people? How can people starting their career balance hard work and happiness? Please tell us about your new roles with a VC and advising the cabinet office?

Matt Phelan and Gabe Barrett sit down during Pride month to discuss Gabe's unique perspective on the world of work. Having transitioned Gender Gabe offers us all a unique perspective on subjects ranging from belonging to building teams. Gabe is a data expert and now works to help companies build teams in a Hybrid work world. Matt asks Gabe the following questions Tell us your story? How do you support someone transitioning? Is data scary? How do you build a team? What's next for Gabe Barrett?

Femi started his business journey as an 11 year old with the support of his amazing Mum Grace. Now at 15 Femi is a veteran of the tech world and we discuss everything from their mother and son partnership to building an inclusive culture. We talk about dealing with Tourettes Syndrome to training school children to code. I ask Femi and Grace the following questions What makes you happy? How do you work as a double team? What can employers do to attract talent like Femi?  

Matt Phelan and Emily Franklin discuss Employee Voice and the importance of listening to your people. Matt asks Emily the following questions What makes you happy? Why did you get involved in the people space? Why do you share stories on your blog? What is employee voice Not? What is Employee voice? Why employee voice important?

This episode discusses emotions at work and why they are so important. What are emotions? Why is being emotional associated with being unprofessional? How do you engage with emotions effectively? Should we talk about emotions at work?

Matt Phelan interviews UX expert Leslie Fountain on everything from design, leadership,UX, motivation and designing for human life.

Guest host Susan Furber interviews Clive Hyland on his new book The Quantum Way. Clive's book explores the Science Behind Happiness and Workplace Engagement. What makes you happy? How does this book link to Freedom To Be Happy Why did you write The Quantum Way? What is in The Quantum Way? What are your influences?  If someone has your read book and become inspired what is the next step? Susan asks Clive the following questions What makes you happy? How does this book link to Freedom To Be Happy Why did you write The Quantum Way? What is in The Quantum Way? What are your influences?  If someone has your read book and become inspired what is the next step?