What kind of manager are you? Stressed out? Always worried about what staff are doing, and checking up on them? Or enjoying life, relaxed, confident you're on target and focusing on getting the job done?
If you're stressed, Henry Stewart wants to turn you into a confident and relaxed manager, and that's going to be the focus of his talk at the English UK Management Conference in March.
"Managers tend to be very task-focused. Sometimes it's hard to step back and see the bigger picture. In a happy workplace people feel valued, motivated, know what they need to do and are doing what they are good at. It takes a bit of stepping back and bit of time to do that stuff but the benefits for the organisation are massive," says Henry.
He's an expert on this kind of thing, being the founder and chief executive of London-based training business Happy Ltd, which was rated one of the top 20 workplaces in the UK for five successive years and helps other organisations create happy workplaces.
How would you know if your office wasn't a happy one? Henry identifies the sort of office where people always seem stressed, never seem to have any time, but never seem to get anything done.
In contrast, he cites Google where "people always have time for you, are always ready to help and at the same time are productive. Are people helpful, helping each other, volunteering, and coming up with ideas or are you looking around and thinking: why am I having to do everything? If you as a manager are coming up with all the ideas you need to change the culture."
There are all sorts of benefits in doing this, he says, citing one piece of research which compared the performance of top-rated workplaces with top stock market companies. "If you had invested the same amount of money in both over 25 years, the return is £100,000 compared with £235,000. That's the difference, but there are lots of other examples."
The English UK Management Conference is being held at the Royal York Hotel in York on Thursday 12 and Friday 13 March 2015. With big-name speakers and ELT specialists, there are presentations for everyone, including why a happy workplace is more productive, the English UK 'MBA', conflict, communication, CPD, careers, inspection, and more. An Open Space session, moderated by Will Nash, is designed to ensure managers discuss issues most crucial to their working lives.
Find out more and book your place at the English UK Management Conference 2015.
