Bristol’s Happy City Initiative has launched the Happiness Challenge, an innovative programme aimed at strengthening businesses in the city and helping them through the economic downturn.
The Challenge, which is being backed by Bristol Business News, focuses on happiness as a way of improving productivity, solving problems, inspiring creativity and promoting team working which, in turn, should lead to lower absenteeism and reduced cases of work-related stress.
It consists of a series of three workshop days spread over three months and weekly on-line challenges which are highly practical and can be applied for immediate results.
There will also be a half day of direct in-house support to help course participants effectively engage their colleagues.
Happy City co-founder Mike Zeidler, a former regional director of Business in the Community and assistant chief executive at the Bristol Chamber of Commerce, said: “It’s clear that, in the current economic climate, people want business models that have a firm grasp of the longer term and which produce value-added jobs.
“We’ve brought together the best thinking in leadership, corporate responsibility, facilitation and community engagement to create a world-class business development programme.
“Business winners and losers are increasingly being determined by their people skills – it’s no good having great products or skills if your people are unhappy and unproductive.”
Bristol Business News editor Robert Buckland added: “Bristol’s business community already has a terrific reputation for leadership in corporate responsibility and there’s a strong understanding in the city of the link between social and environmental achievement and profit.
“The Happiness Challenge takes this one step further by offering a practical, inexpensive and achievable development programme for local businesses to engage with and help create a more sustainable economy.”
Course designer and lead facilitator Liz Zeidler has developed the programme from internationally tried-and-tested material which has helped transform organisations where staff were very short of time and often under stress.
The Happiness Challenge costs £1,000 per person for the three-month package. Liz recommends staff work in pairs as it dramatically increases the effectiveness of the programme in the workplace with at least one of the pair in a managerial role.
The first Happiness Challenge starts on January 25, 2011. For more details contact Mike Zeilder at mike@happycity.org.uk
