Lord Mark Price (00:00)

 Everything that you look at at the P&L is driven by people and whether you can get more from your people than your competitors can get from your people. The solution to every problem lies with your people. We have a problem because we're not selling enough of this. What do you do about it? You ask your people. So there'll be people who will spend the whole day looking at spreadsheets, trying to find the answer in the spreadsheet. The answer isn't in the spreadsheet. The answer is in the people.

Siân Harrington  (00:25)

Hey everyone, welcome to Work’s Not Working, a show about forward-thinking people leaders, innovators and academics, and how they think we can fix work to make it more meaningful, healthy, inclusive and sustainable. Brought to you by The People Space. 

Siân Harrington (00:40)

Hi, I’m Siân Harrington – and today on Work’s Not Working – Let’s Fix It – we’re diving into a question that should be blindingly obvious - If happier people work better – why aren’t more businesses investing in happiness?

My guest is Lord Mark Price – a man who’s spent over four decades leading some of the UK’s most respected organisations, including as managing director of Waitrose and deputy chair of the John Lewis Partnership. He’s also held ministerial office, chaired major global foundations and now runs WorkL – a platform that helps companies measure and improve employee happiness.

Mark’s latest book Happy Economics argues that happiness isn’t fluffy. It’s not a perk. It’s a business metric – and one that could solve the UK’s long-standing productivity crisis.

So later on, we’ll explore:

• Why so many leaders still underestimate the impact of happiness on business success
• What the data says about happy teams and company performance
• And how to create a workplace culture where happiness actually thrives — no pizza parties required.

But first, here’s a little more about my guest. Known as the ‘Business Nourisher’, Mark is the founder of WorkL for Business and WorkL, former managing director of Waitrose and the former deputy chair of the John Lewis Partnership.
 After retiring in 2016 he was appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron as Minister of State for Trade and Investment and made a life Peer. He has served as Chair of the Fair Trade Foundation, is a non-exec at Coca-Cola and president of the Chartered Management Institute.
 He is also the author of several books on leadership and organisational culture, including Happy Economics: Why the Happiest Workplaces Are the Most Successful.

We start by discussing what Mark thinks isn’t working about work today.

Siân Harrington  (02:36)

So Mark, delighted to have you with us today on Work’s Not Working… Let's Fix It! So let's start by talking about your decades in leadership at some of the most respected businesses in the UK. From where you sit today, what do you think's gone wrong with the way we work? Are we too focused on efficiency? Have we lost thinking about what makes people thrive? You know, what are you hearing about what's broken in work?

Mark Price  (03:00)

Well, what I think arguably is broken is that productivity in the UK hasn't been going up for probably two decades. And as a consequence of that, real living standards aren't going up for people. So the great conundrum that the government particularly is facing is how do you improve the productivity of the United Kingdom?

Now, businesses are different. Some businesses are growing and they're growing productivity and they're more profitable. Others are doing less well. But if you aggregate them all together, undoubtedly the challenge that the UK economy has faced for a long time now is productivity isn't growing.

Siân Harrington (03:45)

Yeah, I mean, we've been talking about that, as you said, for decades. And I think we can say that a lot of economies are finding difficulty in productivity, but there are new economies coming up and performing very well. Now you've got a book called Happy Economics, and I love that phrase. It's a really compelling one. But this could be one of the answers to this productivity conundrum. So let's unpack it a bit and tell me what exactly does it mean? How does it sort of flip that traditional view of business?

Mark Price (04:12)

Well, you're right to say, Siân, that, I wrote Happy Economics to be part of the answer to improving productivity. And what I've witnessed during my time in government and before is successive governments saying we're going to fix productivity by normally investing in infrastructure. we've got faster trainings or more motorways, somehow that's going to improve productivity. And of course that, that will have some impact.

They've also incentivised companies to invest in new technology. And there's no doubt that giving capital rebates on investment in technology or things that businesses can do to reduce labour is a good thing. But the thing I think that's been missing for a long time now is a focus on the employee, how you train and develop and coach the employee, how you provide an environment where the employee can thrive. Because what I set out in Happy Economics is it's that that drives productivity.

We built the WorkLplatform seven years ago now. It started in 2018. We launched it in 2019 and we'll come onto it. But it's a platform where we measure, track and improve the happiness of employees. And we do that to improve their commercial performance and the performance of businesses.

And what we find now from the data that we've got over a million respondents, about one and a half million respondents now, is that those that are happy at work are less likely to leave, less likely to have sick absence, are more productive, have fewer problems with their mental health, are more likely to be promoted. So all of our research shows that if employees are happy, it's better for them and it's better for their companies. 

So simply put, the book Happy Economics explains that, where the links are, why it drives commercial performance, but more importantly for managers, how do you achieve it? So for me, the big focus is trying to get people to realise that getting the most from your people, getting extra discretionary effort from your people is what's going to give you a commercial advantage. 

Siân Harrington  (06:30)

Yeah, now I've written about people in HR for quite a long time, a couple of decades now. And I still think to get big businesses – and you've run and led very big businesses in the UK – to get them to think this way is really challenging. I think, as you said, talking about capital investment and talking about tech helping out and all of this stuff is things people understand. But when it comes to the people piece, and especially the word happiness.

I think that it's a bit of a challenge. Tell me what have you learned in your own career about happiness, all the way from like shop four to the boardroom? When did you realise this isn't just one of these soft, nice to have things, but actually is a competitive advantage?

Mark Price (07:15)

So my first experience of learning about happiness in work and its importance came when I joined John Lewis as a graduate trainee in 1982. And on my very first day in the business, there were five of us who joined as graduate trainees in their Southampton branch. And we were told by the then managing director on our very first day that the supreme purpose of the John Lewis partnership, that's John Lewis and Waitrose, was the happiness of the people that worked there. And that was based on something that the founder of John Lewis had set out almost 100 years before when he said that he believed that if he had a happy workforce, they would stay longer. They'd have less time off sick. If they stayed longer, training and experience would stick and be passed on that as a consequence of all of those things, customers would get better service. As a consequence of that, customers would stay longer. And over the medium long term, the business would thrive. And so on day one of 34 years with John Lewis and Waitrose, that's what I was told. 

And then I spent 34 years working out what does it really mean to be happy at work? And a lot of it was baked into the culture that people understood that you behaved in these ways. And that drove happiness some of it was operationalised so the way that people were acknowledged or rewarded or treated or listened to and some of it was Just through osmosis good practice that people learned through time So I was very lucky that the business sent me to a number of business schools. I went to the London Business School and INSEAD and Columbia where I have the time to really sit and think about how do you bring all these things together, the things that are operationalised, the things that are in the culture of the business, and how do you make sure that they can be replicated time and time again so that you can improve the happiness of people. 

And my book Happy Economics sets all those things out. But what I wanted to do was to take all of those experiences from 34 years in what I'd learned and, as you'll know from your past, during my time running Waitrose, we took on a lot of shots from our competitors. And what was really interesting is that we were able to put into those shops the thinking about how you treat people and how that drives their performance and the company's performance. 

And we took on branches from Summerfield and Safeways, all sorts of people. And when we take those shops on we took all the employees and these are shops that before they became part of Waitrose would have 70% staff turnover. So you were replacing 70% of your people every year. They'd have sick absence of 20 to 25%. So at any one time, one in five, one in four of the workforce would be off sick. And they had pretty low morale.

When Waitrose went in and we put in place the methodology that I talk about, we found that within six months, staff turnover went to less than 20% and sick absence went to under 5%. And so there was a huge saving for those businesses. They weren't spending all their time having to recruit new people, train new people, cover sick absence. That time could be invested in training and developing people. And as a consequence of that, customers got better service. So what we found was that taking these shops on became massively profitable for Waitrose by introducing that model. 

So what I learned from Waitrose, both in terms and John Lewis, both in terms of practice, how, why, why it's so important to have a happy workforce. But then also what happened when we actually did it that that became very clear to me over 34 years in that business that you can measure happiness. It is really important to the success of a business. And when you get it right, it's great for the individual and it's great for the company too.

Siân Harrington (11:38)

Well, let's pick up on that a bit because it's a powerful argument. And we hear people regularly saying, whatever their word for happiness might be, but putting the people first and engaging them culture, all those things are vital. But I think where you're pushing this forward, and in the book, you're talking about this is now a business metric, we should be looking at this exactly the same way that we do any other financial metric in a business. What does that look like if I'm running a company? How would I actually measure that? What does it look like? Is it KPIs? Dashboards? What are we talking about?

Mark Price (12:15)

So I would hope that most developed companies already measured staff turnover and already measure their sickness absence. So at some point, at some level, and I would take it to the highest level, I'd have it at the board, that every month you're saying, what's our staff turnover and what's our sick absence? Now, for anybody in finance, they're easy measures because you know what the cost is. You know what it's cost you if somebody's off sick because you've had to cover for their work, you've lost that efficiency in the business. Equally, you know what it costs if you lose somebody. You know what it costs to recruit somebody new, what it costs in lost productivity while you're training that new person and the cost of training. So businesses at some level will have some appreciation of that. What you've then got to say is, but what's driving it? Why have we got high levels of staff turnover? Why is it higher in this department than this department? Why is this area of the business got higher sick absence than this area of the business? And when you start asking the question why, then the things that I'm talking about become really important. It's how do we understand what's driving sentiment, happiness, engagement, whatever you want to call it, productivity, extra discretionary effort, all of those things. What is it that actually drives it?

So, because we can measure turnover, staff turnover and sick absence, there are two very good benchmarks that you can start to use to say, how do we improve those metrics to improve the productivity and profitability of this company?

Siân Harrington (13:56)

So you mentioned your current company at the beginning. So what do you do to help enable that?

Mark Price (14:00)
Well, after I'd left Waitrose I spent two years in the Government but I always said that what I wanted to do was to try and help people understand what I'd learned over 34 years about what it is that makes you happy at work and to help the individual, but also ultimately to help organisations. So with a very brilliant woman who owns a tech company, I said, look, what I'd really like to do is to have a very straightforward survey, not that many questions, 20 of questions where we can help an individual understand if they're happy in their job and if they're not, where they're not happy, what's driving the unhappiness, and then we'll give them advice about how they can improve. So it started off with a philanthropic idea that we just wanted to help people be happier in their jobs. And not long after, I was approached by a couple of companies who said, look, this is really interesting. Would you actually come and work with us?

So we now work with over 1,000 companies. run the World's Happiest Workplace list, which has now got 110,000 companies listed on it with data. We run the Sunday Times Best Places to Work but we now do that all over the world. So in Ireland, Australia, the Philippines, Egypt, UAE, South Africa, India, just all over the world, we're running those Best Place to Work awards. And the great thing about those, it's an easy way for a company to enter award and start getting all this data on how do my people feel? And to be recognised if they're doing really well. So where we've got to now is that we've got a platform that helps individuals. That's where it started, as you said, but now that's expanded to help companies and we run these awards all over the year, all over the world.

Siân Harrington (15:45)

So if I were to really drill down on the evidence behind here, obviously I personally believe in this type of thing. something we write about at The People Space and I do see the business case very strongly. But if I'm a naysayer, I can see the obvious business cost savings from, not needing to recruit more, etc etc. But how do we draw that line of sight from ‘these people are happy’ to ‘this is a real beneficial business result’. So rather than it just being, we think we found out these people are happy and, by the way, we've quite good business results. How can you actually draw that line evidentially?

Mark Price (16:23)

So in Happy Economics I set out all the evidence that shows that people that are happy at work, companies that have happier workforces are commercially more successful. Because we now work with over 1,000 organisations, we see organisations that are successful financially or not successful, and we can link that to how happy their people are. So we've got all the evidential evidence in the world that says people that are happy in their jobs individually and personally perform better. They give more. They give extra discretionary effort. They're more likely to be promoted. They're more likely to be paid more highly. They have better mental health. So we know it's better for individuals. 

But also we now track 110,000 companies. We track how they're ranking in terms of how their employees feel about working there, their happiness, and we rank their commercial performance because it's publicly available.

And also we work with individual companies. So in the book I talk about productivity being higher, 20% earnings per share being higher. There's all the evidence in the world. There's nothing that's, I think, contestable about the link between people being happy at work and then giving more and the company doing better. Now, of course, there's a whole host of other things. I'm not saying this is the only thing. You just have happy employees but can do it with really bad strategy and bad decision making and bad management of cash. 

I mean, effectively, there are two things which are critically important to have a successful business and to out-compete. And they're both about how you invest. One is about how you invest your money. Every day, managers have decisions to make about how they're investing money in the business. And there are choices. And the choices you make have a huge consequence on whether you outperform. Do you invest in this system or this new shop or whatever it happens to be? So the deployment of capital, where you spend your money, has a huge impact on how well you do. 

The second thing is your people. Can you get your people to give more than your competitors' people? And that's about you allocating time. Where are we going to invest our people's time and energy? And can we get most from that? Those are the two things that are most important. You've got kind of strategy sitting over the top. But for me, that's not as important and strategy really guides the other two. So it's critically important that people are getting, managers are getting the most from their people. 

And the other thing that we set out in Happy Economics from the data we've got, because we've got data on 195 countries, I can tell you that there is an absolute correlation between the happiness of workforces in the country and that country's GDP and productivity. The UK is bottom of the G20 for workplace happiness and bottom of the G20 for productivity. It's just completely aligned. If people get out of bed in the morning, and go, I don't really want to do this. You know, I really don't like going in. I don't like my job. I don't like the manager. I don't like my colleagues. They're just not going to give as much as somebody bounces out of bed and says, I really like what I do. I'm really well respected, get on great with my manager. You know, we have a clear plan of what we're to do. I acknowledge when we do things well, it's completely different. And yet what people miss is that link. 

I don't want to denigrate finance people, but the finance people will look at the P&L. They'll say, here are the numbers. But what's driving the numbers? What drives sales? Your people.

What drives operational efficiency? Your people. Everything that you look at the P&L is driven by people and whether you can get more from your people than your competitors can get from your people. The solution to every problem lies with your people. We have a problem because we're not selling enough of this. What do you do about it? You ask your people. So there'll be people who will spend the whole day looking at spreadsheets, trying to find the answer in the spreadsheet. The answer isn't in the spreadsheet. The answer is in the people.

So everything for me, Siân, comes back to people. Are they engaged? Do they want to do well? Do they want the organisation to do well? How's the organisation ensuring that that happiness for their people.

Siân Harrington (20:50)

It's common sense really, isn't it? And actually in the days, if we go back, I guess, for those of us of the age who can go back to earlier working times, back to 20, 30 years or whatever, we all know that we enjoyed jobs when we got on well with the team, when we got on well with our managers, when we knew what we were going to do. In fact, the businesses probably weren't as sophisticated with all the metrics that we have today, but it was common sense.

And yet, as you said, particularly in difficult times, people become a cost. They're not seen as that added value, which is what they're doing. 

So let's just unpack that a little bit more in terms of what happiness actually is. So in your book, you talk about the six drivers of workplace happiness. So I hope I get these right. So I've got reward and recognition, information sharing, empowerment, wellbeing. a sense of pride and job satisfaction. So those are the actual things that are driving happiness. Which of these do you think leaders still underestimate? And why does that matter?

Mark Price (21:45)

They overestimate pay reward They think that the answer to all their problems if we could pay our people more then suddenly that'll solve the problem So that's the one they underestimate most of all of those six the one I think that's least appreciated is information sharing And I can explain why but if I can I just go back to something you were just saying before the six steps I'm really sorry to do that. But you said something that I think so important that quite often, people in finance higher up look at people as a cost, not as a benefit. And one of the saddest things I've seen in business over the last 40 years is middle management being ripped out of organisations. And the view is that there's a tear we can take out and you'll have no impact. But it's just not right. 

Those at middle management level or all management levels, what they're doing is they're coach when it's done well, they're coaching and training and encouraging the group below. If you're managing 50, 60 people, I don't know how you can effectively do that. I don't know how you can take a personal interest in somebody and their development and encourage them and guide them. They're pretty well left to their own devices. You're using more metrics to measure them saying, you should have lifted 10 boxes in an hour. You've only done nine. You're very bad. But I mean, it's just all missing the point about how do you get the most out of a human being when every human being is different? So for me, that thinking about it, it's a number on a sheet. It's a pay cost we've got to cut. It misses a fundamental understanding of what management is there to do and how you deliver through people. 

So now I've had that little rant about the pitfalls and hazards of too quickly dismissing management levels. Going back, you were asking me about the six steps and you said, which is the most important? And I started by saying, well, the one people overestimate is paid, the one people underestimate is around information sharing and knowledge.

Siân Harrington (23:55)

And so, so tell me what information sharing looks like then and why do think people underestimate it?

Mark Price ((24:00)

Well, if I quickly run through the six, then you'll see how they knit together and then I'll particularly pick up on information sharing. So there are six things that I discovered through my time in John Lewis and the business schools thinking hard that really drive productivity and drive happiness at work. And it's not anything to do with having bean bags in the restroom or pizzas on a Thursday night. I mean, they're lovely things. I wouldn't stop anybody doing them, but that's not what really matters. 

The six things that really matter are reward. Do people feel fairly paid? Recognition. Are people being told they're doing a good job? If I didn't pick as my kind of area for most improvement information sharing, I'd pick recognition because we're really bad at it in the UK. So just thanking somebody when they do a good job that has such a positive impact on how somebody feels at work, how happy they are. But also it's really positive for the person who's giving that feedback and saying to somebody, you did a really good job. There's benefits both ways. 

Information sharing is the second one. And information sharing is about two things. It's about, do you have enough information to do your job well? So many people are putting a job and they're not given that information and it goes wrong and they get a rocket for it going wrong. And it was never fair. They should have got the rocket because they were never trained in the first place. So one part of it is about training, but the other part of it and the part that people miss and is really important is giving people context to their job. So informing people about this is why your job's important. This is where the company's going. This is what we're investing in so that people feel part of that complete journey. So sharing information is really important. And it's underestimated the impact of that. 

The third area is all about empowering people. And what I mean by that is giving people the space to do their job, having them have the training, not standing over their shoulder and micromanaging, allowing them to do things well so that you then can recognise them, listening to people's point of view, respecting people and their differences, all of those things lead to an empowered individual. And when you've got that, then life becomes easier for the management because they've got people that they can trust that work into a high level and can get on with the job. 

The fourth is about wellbeing. The organisation genuinely cares for your wellbeing, mental, physical, financial. 

The fifth is about sense of pride. I feel really proud of where I work. I feel really proud of the job that I do. So when people feel that they have pride in what they're doing, there's purpose in what they're doing, they're happier. 

And then the last is around job satisfaction. Now, there's three things I'll point out on job satisfaction. The first is the most obvious. Do you like your job? There are so many people who take on jobs because they think they have to and they've never left them. And so you really have to think hard about, I actually like this job? And if you don't like the job that you're doing, my stronger voice is that you leave, but that's number one, really basic. The other two around job satisfaction are, I being developed? Is somebody interested in me and developing me as a person? And the last and really critical is how do I get on with my manager? So if you have a good relationship with your manager, you are far more likely to be happy at work than getting pizzas on a Friday night or anything else.

So those are the six things. Those six things really drive whether people are happy in their work. They're all measurable and they can all be improved. And here's the great thing for anybody listening. It costs nothing to improve them. You can measure them. There's a bit of a cost in measuring, but there is no cost in improving once managers know how to fix those problems.

Siân Harrington (28:05)

Well, look, it makes sense and it doesn't cost anything. You've got the evidence in your book. You've got the lived evidence as well. It's not just all academic. Why are so many businesses still getting this wrong? Do you think it's about just not really listening to this and just not putting people at the heart of what they're doing. Do you think it's just that they're ignorant about it? Is it just, it's not a business metric? You know, why is there this happiness deficit? Why aren't we all doing this?

Mark Price (28:38)

I think it's quite a big philosophical step for somebody. So people like Richard Branson have always said my people come first and then my people will deliver for my customers and then we'll have a really good business. So there are people out there who are enlightened, who say it starts with my people. There's a much, much larger group that will say it starts with my customers. We need to be customer centric.And then there's another very, very large group that says it starts with shareholders. We're to make money and, you know, nose, you know, to the grindstone and away we go. And I think that bit by bit, when productivity doesn't improve, when companies don't outperform their competitors, they will think more philosophically about why does my competitor have higher productivity? And they'll probably start by saying, well, my competitor has just invested £5 million in a new machine. But that might be part of the answer. But the real answer is that your competitor is getting more from their people than you're getting. S

o for me, it is about now, as you said, Siân, providing the evidence, which we do. So happy economics, any organised. I think there are 50,/60,000 organisations in the UK on the world's happiest list. Anybody can just go and have a look, go and have a look at the scores that their people are giving them, go and have a look at their competitor scores, see what the difference is, think about how they can improve. It's all open source. I've made it open source so anybody can go there. So my hope is that through quiet reflection on how do we take a business forward, people will think actually the main way we take this business forward is not rewriting the strategy paper. The way we take this business forward is getting more from our people.

Siân Harrington (30:28)

So I want to pick back up on the manager because you talked about the importance of the manager and also about how often that's seen as a tear to take out. Now let's look at new technologies like artificial intelligence. I know, no, you're not anti, anti-technology as such, but I'm increasingly hearing about AI replacing roles, obviously, some jobs, lots of tasks and roles. But also I'm hearing that people are thinking that this is a way of stripping out some of that managerial level, that middle management level, which is interesting. I know you think that AI is a bit of a risk to human happiness. So what do you see in terms of where it can be a force for good and where it's going to negatively impact happiness at work.

Mark Price (31:18)

So over my many years in business there have always been waves of new technology that's going to make things work. And probably the greatest of those was the internet hitting businesses in the 1990s. And of course, everybody then said everybody's job's going to do, the internet's going to take over. it wasn't the case. There were more jobs. And then of course, every five years, technology needs a new thing for everybody to get excited about and buy into. Say we've had blockchain and we had the Millennium bug, which were another huge things that was going to change anything. And we've had cloud computing and they're all good. 

And I don't dispute that AI is a good thing and can have very positive outcomes. If it can scan millions of X-rays or whatever in hospitals and get to a diagnosis quicker for people. That's a good thing. But I've not seen yet and I've been looking hard at AI for 18 months now where the real practical benefits are. You know, I've seen compiling meeting notes, pulling out information, helping people write a report quickly. But none of them I would see at the moment as being massively time saving and taking away human endeavour. Now, I do think that will come. I don't dispute that will come. But I think other jobs and roles will be created.

I can remember when Deep Blue the computer beat Garry Kasparov and everybody then said it's that's the end. mean, that must have been 30 years ago now, long time ago. So I mean, there is something about human creativity. I think that the ability of AI to collect information and then to regurgitate that information in a way that's helpful is great. And that's where I think we'll see most of the applications. 

On WorkL now, we've got 10 million jobs on the site. So we're increasingly using AI to help people sift jobs, find jobs, find the right candidates. I mean, that's a good thing but it's more about how are we making what we were doing previously with algorithms even more sophisticated and even better for the individual. I'm, it's a very long-winded answer and I haven't really given you a great answer. I'm a sceptic about the speed that things will move. I think it'll be much slower, much more thoughtful. And I don't see an Armageddon around jobs. think people will retrain, reskill, and there'll be different jobs.

Siân Harrington (34:08)

What about the impact on happiness? Because we can talk about the algorithm and the impact we've seen through social media use. And you've got Mark Zuckerberg talking about creating worlds where your mates are all going to be effectively AI avatars. And we talk about therapy now, lots of people are using AI for that. So we're removing some of that human bit. And for me, that is innately connected with happiness. And we've got a bit of a loneliness epidemic going on at the same time. So I just wonder where you see happiness sitting in all of this. Because as we said with the managers, one of the things there is it's that person-to-person sort of interaction, even if it's done over a computer screen, there's something about the person-to-person interaction that we're in danger if we're not careful, of removing 90% of the time from our lives.

Mark Price (35:07)

Yeah, well, I think, I think there are two distinct things on that. There's one about, talk about happiness in the workplace and what drives an employee to feel happy in the workplace. And AI won't change that feeling that you're well rewarded, feeling that you're recognised when you do something well. I'm sure if an avatar says, well done, Siân, you did a great interview. It's not necessarily going to fill you with much joy. Whereas if one of your listeners says, you know, you interviewed that person really well, that's going to give you more happiness. So all of the things that I talk about happiness at work, don't think AI is going to change how a human feels about the information they have, whether the organisation cares for their wellbeing, whether they feel pride of what they're doing. 

I think the area you're touching on more, and Zuckerberg was touching on more, is about life in general and happiness in life in general. And I've got three dogs. I love my dogs. They make me happy. They're not a human. I don't discount the fact that some people could feel very happy with an avatar. I suspect the most will look for something that's more interactive than an avatar to have a relationship with. So frankly, I'm a bit sceptical that any of us will fall in love with a robot and that will take over for people that we've sat down and had a drink with and dinner with and bonded with.

Siân Harrington (36:27)

So the youngest generation in the workforce, the Gen Z, they're not afraid to just walk out when they're unhappy. Do you think there's something about that generation that they're demanding more things like being treated differently, like being treated, thinking that they want to have some worth in this job in a way that perhaps, us older people never really asked for, even if we felt it?

Mark Price (36:50)

 No, I think they've been treated differently. I think we've created the issues which are now manifesting themselves in that generation. So if you think about, people often say, and our research kind of bears out that they are more purpose driven. They do want to do jobs they enjoy and they want to make a difference to the world. But if you think about the six things I've talked about that drive happiness, recognition is one of them. If you're younger and you're first coming into the workplace, say you're in your first five years of work, recognition and career development become even more important. So the role of your manager in giving that becomes even more important. If your manager is not in the office, if you're fully remote, it's quite hard work to do that. So I'm a great believer in hybrid working. So there's something about all these people being recognised and developed in the way that you would want. And that contact with people is also really important for them. 

If you're older, all of our research says if you're older, you actually quite like not going to the office anymore. If you're younger, you miss that experience. I think the thing we talked about, the hollowing out of management has a big impact. You know, probably when you and I were, you know, first in our roles in business, there was a a manager sitting not far from us, constantly giving us feedback, encouragement, whatever. If you've hollowed out and you've got one manager managing 50, 60 people and you're young in the workforce and you're not getting that recognition, you're not getting that career development, you're more likely to move on. So I think all the issues are fixable and we work with brilliant companies that do a great job of hanging on to their younger people. 

The other thing that I think has changed is that when I started out, it was a job for life and that's changed. And that's, think, because companies don't want to retrain people. It's much easier to lose them in a redundancy round and then recruiting a new younger lot who might have the skill. So I think there are big question marks that companies have to ask about their commitment to an employee's life cycle. Is it our commitment in our company that somebody joins at 25 and we continually retrain them, encourage them to try and keep them with us until they're 65? You know, is that an ambition or is it the ambition in this company to have them for three years and then move them out and bring the next lot in and the next lot in? And it feels to me as though it's almost become a part of the people strategy to want to have that churn all the time to keep wages lower, to skill through new people rather than skill through training. So I don't blame that younger generation. I think that my generation has got a lot to answer for in terms of the working environment we've created and whether we actually are genuinely nurturing people for the long term.

Siân Harrington (39:52)

Totally agree with you on that. So let's have some quick fire questions towards the end then. So bearing in mind that what's, what's the other thing leaders do that you think kills happiness at work? The most joyless thing that currently is in work.

Mark Price (40:07)

So, well the one thing I've said, just not enough recognition. I mean we think the Americans are so faux because they say great stuff. Have a great day. You're brilliant. You're wonderful. But it has a really powerful impact on the individual and on the person giving the praise. And we're really bad at it. So I think that would be my number one. 

The other one, which is an absolute killer, apart from not recognising something that's linked to it. It's just not caring and taking an interest. mean, for me, one of the most important things is if you're not interested in what your team are doing, why should they be interested? And when I ran Waitrose, I had on a list of paper 15 names of the 15 people, either my board members or that were critical to the success of the business at a senior level, but not on the board. And I have their names on a piece of paper and I would make a point every week of talking to each of them, either face to face or on the phone. And when I did it, I'd tick it. People listening are going to think, God, that's so ridiculous. But I can't tell you how hard it was to talk to those 15 people every week, to find the time in your schedule to say, right, I've got 15 minutes just to phone up and say, hey, how are you? How's it going? Do you need any help from me? That's fantastic. You've achieved that bit of it to take that level of interest. 

And it's why it goes back to this point about stripping out middle management. I struggled with 15. How on earth you do it with 50. I've got no idea to take that kind of interest. So for me, the two things and they are linked is not recognising when people do something well, which is a killer of happiness and productivity and just being perceived to not take an interest in what your team are doing.

Siân Harrington (41:56)

Yeah, and of course, if you made it a business metric, then suddenly people would think that time was well spent, not something they've got to find time for. So what's a myth about happiness at work that drives you mad?

Mark Price (42:10)

Well, there are a few. We've got a problem with morale. We'll put in some beer taps. We've got a problem with morale. We'll do three pizzas on the Thursday night. T

he other one is mental health first aiders. You know, we'll have mental health first aiders. That'll solve the problem. That won't solve the problem. The problem is why do you need to have them? You know, what is it that's creating the issue? And it's normally people are overworked. They're not listened to. They're not respected. But I mean, those are the drivers. Those are the things that you have to do. 

Now, I'm not saying to anybody listening to this, you should not have a mental health first aid. I think it's a good thing. having them thinking that they're the people that are going to solve the issues is just not right thinking. So to name a few.

Siân Harrington (42:56)

And what makes you happy at work? And is it something that you developed over time? You've learned and realised this is what makes me happy.

Mark Price (43:04)

Yeah, I have. It's a really good question, Siân. So when I started out a long time ago, I thought what would make me happy is getting promoted and having more responsibility. And I can remember saying to my now wife, Judith, if I can be a general manager with John Lewis, I'll be really, really happy. And then I said, when I'm a managing director, I'll be really, really happy. And I can remember my first managing director role was running the John Lewis at High Wycombe. And I must have been 29 or 30, that sort of age. And I sat behind that desk and I thought, this is fantastic. I'm running a massive business. I think turnover at the time was 70 million and we had 400, 500 people there. And I thought, this is fantastic. And within two days, I was genuinely thinking what am I going to do next? And I found that that thinking it you just have an insatiable appetite if you think that way to want one it never feeds you can never feed the hunger and so I rationalised a long time ago now when I was around 30 that it wasn't that that was going to bring me happiness in my work. 

What actually brought me happiness and continues to is building something, creating something with other people, watching it grow, watch the people grow, doing something that's altruistic and genuinely helps people. That's where I get my real happiness. 

Just one related story. When the graduates used to start at Waitrose, I used to go and see them when I was managing director in their first week. And one of the things I used to say to them, there's normally about 25, 30 in the room, I'd say to them, OK, what's your ambition? What do you want to do in Waitrose? And about three quarters of them would say, we want your job. We want to be the boss of Waitrose. And I'd say, that's fantastic. I then say, how many years do you think people have as CEO, typically in the UK? And they kind of didn't know. And I'd say, well, it's five years. And if you're very lucky, you might get 10 years as a CEO. So five or 10 years. Now, at what age do you want to do that? And they'd all pause. Now, they'd normally always say, probably in our mid 40s. So I said, yeah, that's a good call. Being the CEO of a major business, huge business in your mid 40s and thinking that you're going to do it from your mid 40s through to your mid 50s. That's great. So I said, you're all 21 now. So what are you going to do for the next 24 years? 

And when you've got that mindset, you're thinking about how do I grow? How do I develop? What do I learn? And you begin to appreciate that part of the journey rather than just fixating on, want that job. It's good to have that. mean, ego is a really good thing. Ambition is a really good thing but it has to be tempered by something else. So for me the happiness comes from the journey, creating things with other people, doing something like building a platform where people can review how happy they are and we can help them improve it.

That for me is what brings me happiness.

Siân Harrington (46:23)

That's a great piece of advice around that CEO piece. And I just realised, spookily, you might possibly have been my managing director for a few months, because after I graduated from journalism, while I was looking for my first job, I worked doing the Christmas season at John Lewis in High Wycombe. 

Mark Price (46:40)

Yay, I could well have been. You are far too young!

Siân Harrington (46:43)

I'm just thinking about the time, how strange is that? Yeah, I loved that job, I have to say. It's such a great place to work. So finally, let's end with some practical tips that people can take away like now. What advice would you have for HR and business leaders who want to start taking happiness more seriously? What should they start doing or stop doing today? Can you give us three practical actions?

Mark Price (47:07)

I can and I think the first is that I find quite often in business that people use phrases and they never really understood and defined what they mean by them. So I often I often hear people talking about so at the moment the leg policy talk about good jobs. I don't know what a good job is. I've got my definition. I quite often hear people on the radio talk about good management, good line management. But what is that? So what I've tried to do is to define what happiness means at work. What is happiness at work? So I think the first thing for HR is to this once you've made that move in your mind to say getting more from our people is going to drive our commercial performance. That's the first thing. 

The second thing is how do you get more from your people? And it is really about the happiness and then thinking about, OK, in this organisation, what what does that genuinely mean? My framework works for every organisation but really thinking about what is it that would make people happy here? For some people, it's putting in place a good suggestion scene so we can start getting feedback. So all of that bit about information sharing and empowerment. Are we doing that? Are we doing it well enough? So step number one, just think about, are you driving the best performance from your people and what do you think stopping it? And then how do we make those changes?

Read Happy Economics, that would be my suggestion! And go to WorkL, go and see where your company currently ranks. I mean, it'll be fascinating for you to see what your employees are saying about you on an open source site.

Siân Harrington (48:40)

And that's exactly what I was going to end with because I've really enjoyed this conversation. So how can people get onto that site?

Mark Price (48:47)

Just Workl.com. So www.workl.com. And then if they go to the world's happiest list and they just put their company name in, it will pop up and you'll see how employees in your company have scored your company.

Siân Harrington (49:00)

Great, well thank you so much for your time today, Mark. I've really enjoyed the discussion. It's given me a happy start to the day! So I think it's a very important issue to discuss and definitely one of the areas where work isn't working at the moment, to go back to our title. So I've really appreciated you sharing your great insights and stories today. So thank you.

Mark Price (49:21)

It's my absolute pleasure, Siân. It's lovely to see you again and to talk.

Siân Harrington (49:25)

That was Lord Mark Price on why happiness isn’t just good for people, it’s good for business. Did you know that when the happiness of more than 20,000 people was measured by two academics back in 2016 they found that only being sick in bed makes us on average more unhappy than working or studying. 

So if you take just one thing from today’s conversation, let it be this: The biggest lever for performance isn’t found in spreadsheets, it’s found in your people. And if you’re not measuring happiness, you’re missing the metric that really matters.

Thanks for listening to Work’s Not Working… Let’s Fix It. If this episode got you thinking, please subscribe and share it with a colleague or leader who could use a new perspective on performance. Follow me on LinkedIn at Siân Harrington, The People Space, and discover more insights at www.thepeoplespace.com. This episode was produced by Nigel Pritchard. I’m Siân Harrington – see you next time.