An interview with Mark Price

Being happy at work can sometimes feel out of reach, but my guest today on What Matters, Lord Mark Price, author of Work Happier - How to be Happy and Successful at Work, believes that it's one of the most important things we can strive for.

Mark is an expert in improving leadership and organisational culture. He is the former Managing Director of Waitrose and Deputy Chair of the John Lewis Partnership. He has also served as UK Minister of State for Trade and Investment, President of the CMI, Chair of Business in the Community and is currently a non-executive director of Coca-Cola. He is the founder of workplace happiness platform, WorkL, which measures the Sunday Times best places to work list.

In this podcast, we discuss the book, its ground-breaking Charter, Mark's belief that it's our responsibility to be happy at work and how his inspiration goes back to his first day at John Lewis as a graduate.

Work Happier is published by Kogan Page and available from Koganpage.com and all online book platforms.

Being happy at work can sometimes feel out of reach, but our guest today on What Matters, Lord Mark Price, believes that it's one of the most important things we can strive for. Mark is an expert in improving leadership and organisational culture, former UK Trade Minister, former Managing Director of Waitrose and former Deputy Chair of the John Lewis Partnership. He's also the founder of workplace happiness platform, Workal, which measures the Sunday Times best places to work list.

In his new book, Work Happier, How to be Happy and Successful at Work, he argues that workplace well-being shouldn't be a perk, it should be a right. Mark, welcome.

Mark Price: Thank you, Nicola. It's a real pleasure to join you.

Interviewer: You started at the John Lewis Partnership in 1982 as a graduate trainee and worked your way up to the board. In fact, in the preface of your new book, you recall how on your first day you were told that the organisation had a supreme purpose and that this was the happiness of its workers. Rewinding back to that day, can you describe what it felt like to be told that and did that feeling stay with you throughout your career at John Lewis?

Mark Price: Well, it did stay with me throughout my career at John Lewis and that's because it was fundamental to the way that John Lewis and Waitrose operate. The chap that founded the business, a guy called John Spedan Lewis, had an idea at the turn of the last century, almost over 100 years ago, that if his workers were happy, then they'd stay longer, they'd take less time off sick, as a consequence of which training would stick, as a consequence of which people would become more experienced, customers would get better service, and so the business would thrive over the medium-long term. So when I joined, already for circa 60, 70 years, the business had been putting in place all of those elements that led to a happy and fulfilled workforce. And so what I was able to do, and I'm so fortunate, what I was able to do was spend 34 years really thinking about what does it mean to be happy at work, how do you put that into practise, and to what extent does it drive commercial success.

So yes, from the very first day when I was sitting down with four other graduates being told that the John Lewis Partnership Supreme Mission was the happiness of the people that work there, which was a bit of a surprise to me, I thought I was joining a retail business. All the way through to the day that I left, the happiness of the workforce as a way of driving commercial performance was top of mind for me.

Interviewer: A retail business with a real difference. Turning to Work Happier, How to be Happy and Successful at Work, your latest book, there has, to be honest, already been a fair bit of discussion and research on this connection between productivity and happiness. But in your view, no one has ever properly clarified what it actually means to be happy at work.

Why is this important and what do you hope to achieve with the Work Happiness Charter you've created?

Mark Price: So a year ago I published a book called Happy Economic, and what I did in that book was to set out for managers the link between being happy at work and commercial performance. And we're very lucky at Workwell now, we work with over a thousand organisations around the world, and so we were able to measure the happiness of their people and their commercial performance. And we measured extra discretionary effort.

So in that book I set out the link between happiness and how it does drive commercial performance, principally through lower levels of staff turnover, lower levels of sick absence, higher productivity as a consequence of those things. So having written that book for managers, I turned my attention in this book, Work Happier, to everybody at work, every individual in the workplace, to help them try and understand what would make them happy, what would make them unhappy, and then to break that down. And there are 21, 22 chapters, all of which explore a different element of the things that either drive happiness or drive unhappiness at work.

I'm really sad to say that in the research that we've done, over one and a half million people now have taken our Happy at Work test on Workwell. Because of that, we know that at least a third of people are really unhappy in their jobs. And only a year or two ago, Deloitte did a piece of research and they said it was as high as 80% of people who had some kind of unhappiness around their working role.

So I felt the time was right to set out for everybody at work, what is it that makes you happy or unhappy, a way to measure it, and then advice on how to improve. And my hope was this is going to be good for the individual, because again what we know from our research is people who are happy in their jobs earn more, are more likely to be promoted, are more likely to have better well-being, their health is better, their mental health is better. So for all of those reasons it's good for the individual.

From my previous book, and I reprise it in Work Happier, it's also good for organisations, higher productivity etc, but it's also good for countries. And there's a distinct link between the happiness of the workers in a country and their productivity or GDP of that country. And what we see is that the UK has some of the unhappiest workers out of the G20 and not surprisingly has some of the lowest productivity.

So what I've wanted to do in Work Happier is to set that out. And then in the charter that you referred to, what I've done for the very first time is to set out what are the rights and responsibilities for an individual to be happy in their job. What should they expect to receive and what should they expect to give.

It is a contract and so because of that for the very first time I've identified what are the drivers of happiness at work and how do you achieve them.

Interviewer: I also really love the case studies, it brings everything to life. Can you share with us one of your favourite case studies?

Mark Price: Oh gosh, well there are so many. What I've tried to do in every chapter is be really practical about what it can feel like not to have enough information or what would happen if you're not paid enough or what happens if you don't feel you're respected or your well-being isn't right. But also just finding the right job. One of my favourite stories, and an anecdote I tell in the book, is about a visit I made to a Waitrose branch when I was running Waitrose and the branch manager very proudly introduced me to a new hire on the fish counter who had just finished a degree in marine biology and he felt that this new employee was the perfect fit and so I talked to her she was lovely she lived locally and I said to him when I left, "look when she leaves please give me a phone call" . About a month later he phoned me and he said "she's left - how did you know?". So I said well tell me what she's gone to do he said she's gone to study for a phd off the gold coast in Australia studying sharks. So I said but she was always going to do that because working on the fish counter in Waitrose having done a degree in marine biology and being so interested in that topic was never going to be the thing that fulfilled her and made her happy. And therefore the great lesson for people is you need to think really carefully about the job that you're going to do to make sure it is something that you're generally going to enjoy.

Now of course people do work to earn money - when I was a student I was a agricultural labourer and I was a coalman I was a postman - I did all sorts of things, but I knew they were never going to be my career they were jobs that I did and they had a purpose. And so one of the things I try and set out at the start of the book is this whole premise about genuinely finding a job that you're going to enjoy because if you can do that then you will be happy and successful in your working life I also talk at the same time in the book about thinking about the balance that you want.

I talk about my dad who was the most content person I've ever met. He had his own one-man business and he worked to live what he really valued was the time he spent with me and my brother and sister and the family and he did enough he never did too much I on the other hand when I was running Waitrose was doing it probably 80 hours a week and even on a Saturday night I'd be phoning around the branches to see how they'd got on. On my holidays I'd work for the first three hours early in the morning before my family got up to keep in touch and I made a very different decision about what I wanted to do and I think that people consciously have to decide on the spectrum where they want to be so they want to live to work or work to live and once they've made that decision about what they want work to be in their life and then they've made the decision about those things in work that are going to make them happy.

We help them with that we've got a test called a cult x and that helps people identify where they're going to be happiest what work it's going to make them happiest that for me is the building block that's the start then after that you're always going to have ups and downs things that go well and less well and the book helps you through all of that it gives you advice about all of the things that

Interviewer: might not be going well and how do you improve them just picking up on the example you gave in your own career it was driven in a good way is that what you're saying that people are motivated and different in different ways and different things make people happy that's right I enjoyed

Mark Price: the thrill of retailing I love the fact that every day customers scored you your sales went up say the same when they went down and therefore the actions that you took in a retail business had a direct consequence on your commercial performance and I really enjoyed that for me it was a real thrill to work with a team to put in place new initiatives to see what they drove in terms of additional sales customer transactions and so it fed me all the time you know for me it was hugely pleasurable to sit down at five o'clock on a Saturday night for two hours and phone around branches and talk to managers and ask them what had worked and what had gone well what have we got right what could we do better so that fed me now for other people they wouldn't want to do that they wouldn't find that enjoyable the pressure of a commercial life and wanting to grow and etc etc, so we're all different. There is no right and wrong version of what a good working life is, you've got to work it out for yourself so are you in a job that you enjoy how do you make sure you find a job that you enjoy and then how do you get on with your manager how do you develop all of those things.

So the book I hope sets out in a really practical way my thinking about what job is going to be right for you where you're going to get that balance between working 80 hours a week and working however many hours you want to work how you're going to balance time out of work and time in work and then when you do hit the bumps in the road and there will be bumps in the road how do you get around them and still be happy in your job.

Interviewer: As well as case studies and lessons the book is packed with tips and advice something I picked up on daily recognition and how this can be a game changer for managers can you provide some examples of this type of recognition in action.

Mark Price: I'm really pleased you picked that out Nicola because people quite often go to pay first of all and they say oh pay is the biggest driver of happiness at work and all of our research says that it isn't normally people will rank pay six seven eight in terms of things that they find most motivating in their job nearly everybody says that it's recognition being thanked for something that you've done well which you can get daily whereas pay is something that's normally awarded an increase once every year. If you get pay wrong it niggles away at people, pay is a hygiene factor.

But just simply telling people they've done a good job taking an interest in what they're doing giving them feedback that is a much bigger motivator and it drives happiness above anything else so knowing that you work in a job where somebody recognises what you do thanks you when you do it congratulates you when you do it well and so is acknowledging what you're doing coaching and developing you as a consequence that is by far and away the biggest driver of happiness in

Interviewer: work continuing with the theme of advice what can be done if someone works for a toxic manager who's making it as hard as possible or even sabotaging their efforts to take responsibility for their

Mark Price: happiness at work well the first and obvious thing I'd say is if you think the position is beyond your control out of your control you should leave them I mean what we have found consistently is the number one driver of happiness is the relationship that you have with your manager because it's your manager that decides on your pay who recognises you gives you information who listens to your views who gives you respect who cares for your well-being who gives you a sense of pride in the job you're doing who develops your career etc etc so so much of your happiness at work comes down to your relationship with your manager and it's a relationship you have to nurture one of the things I talk about in the book is if you don't feel you're being recognised for a job well done what should you do and my advice which might seem a little counterintuitive is to actually start praising your manager and saying to your manager you did that really well I thought that you handled that well that was a good idea that was a good plan and what you'll find is quite remarkable if you start praising people if you start thanking people not only does it make you feel really good altruism is a really powerful thing that affects our own happiness but if you start doing that to other people they start giving it back to you so it depends what the issue is with your manager and why it's toxic but and if you do feel it's beyond repair then you should leave and get another job but before you do that what I set out in the book is some of the things you might want to think about about why you think you have a bad relationship and one of the things I encourage is that in the first instance you try to talk to the manager about those things or you adapt your behaviour so the manager can see where they might be getting it wrong so it may be that the manager isn't treating you with respect it may be that the manager isn't developing your career it may be that the manager is taking you for granted and not giving you recognition it may be that the manager hasn't paid you well enough it may be that the manager isn't giving you the hours you want and what I do in every one of those instances and probably another 20 more is set out how you should approach this what should be the best approach to try and build that relationship with your manager and then if it can't be reconciled then you should go and again what I try to do there is give people advice on where you should go and what kind of job what kind of manager is going to make you happier.

Interviewer: Am I right in thinking that what you're saying here very much resonates with what you mentioned earlier that people have to work it out themselves you have to work it out yourself?

Mark Price: Completely, completely and I mean that's really well observed one of the themes right at the start of the book you have to take responsibility and when I was at the London Business School a long time ago now 20 30 odd years ago there was a wonderful professor there called Rob Goffey and he taught human sciences HR and he gave a piece of advice to the 45 students in the class that has stayed with me ever since and it was this if there is something that's bothering you there is one negative thing and two positive things that you can do about it the negative thing is that you moan about it all the time you get home from work and you moan about your manager or whatever's gone wrong you go out with your friends and you moan to them you wake up in the morning and you moan when you wake up you go to work and you moan to your colleagues if you take that approach it's not good for your mental health it's not good for your happiness and you will not be as successful in that job as somebody who is happy the two positive things you can do are a let it go accept that your manager is never going to be perfect and accept that at this point in your life you're probably learning more than you're not it's a helpful transition for you and you're going to stick it out or the other positive thing you do is you tackle it you say to the manager what you have done what you have said your behaviours i am finding uncomfortable and we need to resolve this those are the two positive things sadly what a lot of people do is they take the first option they moan and complain about the circumstance they find themselves in they don't let it go and they don't tackle it so right at the start i begin by saying it is your responsibility to be happy at work as you said in in there there's a charter and it said these are the rights that you have this is how you should feel in work and nobody has set that out before you know they talk about contractual bits and pieces but not how should work feel what right should you have to be well informed to be treated with respect but then what responsibilities do you have so i'm a big believer that it's up to every individual and you shouldn't be relying on the organisation you work for to manage your happiness and career you shouldn't be relying on your manager to do that it's great if they do and they should be encouraged to do that because it's good for them it's good for you and it's good for the business but first and foremost take your responsibility yourself and that's why i wrote the book and that's why i built work all so that anybody can go to work all take the free happy at work test get advice and start taking control themselves you say that the real workplace

Interviewer: revolution isn't ai it's human happiness can ai help with this or is it a question of being happy

Mark Price: alongside ai i think there are lots of good things about ai i think we're still in the early days i can remember the internet really first being used early 2000 when i i was working at Waitrose and everybody said then that there'd be masses of job losses and everything would change and there are more people employed today than there were back then and jobs just changed and shifted.

I think ai will support people do their jobs i think it can be really really helpful i think there'll be different jobs i think the nature of work will change but fundamentally ai isn't going to make you happy or unhappy again it's really about you taking control of your working life thinking about what makes you happy and unhappy and then pursuing that it's a legitimate aim to be happy at work.

I remember doing a phone in for an Irish radio station and I was talking about this and somebody phoned in and said "it's called work for a name - it's not supposed to be happy it's work" to which I said "but there's no reason why work can't be enjoyable you know if you've got a manager that appreciates you if you've got a manager that recognises when you're doing something well if there's a manager that shares information with you if there's a manager that listens to your views treats you with respect genuinely cares about your well-being genuinely cares about your career development makes you feel good about the contribution you're making in the business, all of these things can drive happiness in the workplace no matter what job you do".

What it always takes and that's the power of the people so new governments are elected because of the power of the people laws are changed because of the power of the people and so what I would like to see is for millions and millions and millions of people to start to understand that they have a right to be happy at work and this is what it means as i set out in the book and in the work happier charter and this is how they can achieve it and that they do have power they have power and agency over their own working lives that's the big change and what we know is when that happens it's good for the individual it's good for organisations they're more productive and it's good for countries their gross metric and domestic product grows so this is a win-win-win.

When governments talk about productivity they default straight away to investing billions of pounds in new rail links or putting money into new motorways or perhaps building more high-speed internet and those things are fine but at the heart of this is how motivated is the workforce do they give extra discretionary effort do they go the extra mile and do they do that because they're happy or do they do that because they're somehow bullied or forced to do it and if they are bullied and forced it might last for a short amount of time but it certainly won't last for any length of time so one of the answers to improving productivity not just in the UK but everywhere is a motivated workforce who are happy and give extra discretionary effort. If I were in government today that's where I would be focused on all of the things that drive that happiness in work respect being listened to being given information being given recognition your well-being is cared about etc etc you have a very clear vision

Interviewer: what advice can you give people who want to actively encourage their employers to sign up to the charter?

Mark Price: The easiest and simplest thing to do is to go to Workall.com click on the page for the charter and sign it sign it as an individual or sign it as a company and even though we haven't launched yet we've still got companies like Balfour, BT and others who've already signed the charter in advance and what i hope because of that is it becomes something that businesses do on work or we've got data now on nearly 200 000 organisations around the world where individuals have gone and taken the free happy at work survey they've said where they work and so you can go there and look and see how people feel about working there and for those that sign the charter those companies will add the charter mark to their page so that people can see that they're committed and we'll promote that and we'll also show them accreditation so what we want to do is make it really simple for people to go and see which companies and organisations around the world are committed to this have signed the charter and want their employees to be happy because they can see nicola it's better for the employee it's better for the organisation and it's better for the countries in which they live and work.

Interviewer: Work Happier will be published by Kogan Page on the 3rd of September who do you think should buy it and what's the best way to get hold of a copy?

Mark Price: Every single worker in the world should buy it because it will help them it will help them think about what they want from their working lives and how they can achieve a happy working life. It's available via Kogan Page if you go to their website i know they have a discount go to work all you can buy it through work all you can buy it through amazon you can buy it through WH Smiths as well so i think they're now called TG Jones and Waterstones and lots of independents so it's widely available.