Making happiness at work, work.

How can businesses nourish the happiness and wellbeing of their employees?

Kent Business School, in partnership with Maidstone Borough Council, is hosting its first ‘on location’ Business Soundbites event, discussing the topic of employee happiness.

Employee happiness and wellbeing is gaining popularity as a measurement of success for business. But how far are we from happiness replacing accounting and economic profit as the next big business metric?

In his talk, Professor Yannis Georgellis will reflect critically on some of the issues surrounding this debate, including whether happy employees are indeed more productive and whether the HR function could harness employee happiness and wellbeing in order to improve engagement, motivation, and organisational performance. In a more controversial way, Prof. Georgellis will also explore whether there is a ‘dark side’ of happiness at work.

Guest speaker Jane Burgess, Lay Member of the Committee on Standards at House of Commons and Main Board Director for the John Lewis Partnership, will shine a light on how increased emphasis on employee happiness has benefitted the Partnership over time.

Programme schedule

12:00 – 12:30 Registration and buffet lunch

12:30 – 12:55 Professor Yannis Georgellis Happiness in the workplace

12:55 – 13:20 Jane Burgess What do happy employees bring to the John Lewis Partnership?

13:20 – 13:30 Questions and answer session

13:30 – 14:00 Refreshments and networking

Business Soundbites are informal networking events for local and regional businesses. The formula is simple: two short presentations by a KBS academic and an external speaker respectively, followed by refreshments. A perfect opportunity to meet like-minded people, exchange ideas and engage in some light networking.

Please register as places are limited.

We look forward to seeing you on Friday 22 September 2017 at Maidstone Town Hall.

Please book here !