Boo Print for Happiness at Work | Creating Happier Workplaces
Boo Print for Happiness at Work | Creating Happier Workplaces
Introducing the Boo Print for Happiness at Work
This has been a labour of joy for Team Boo. Several years in the making, I read the final draft on Friday and messaged Becci: I ****** LOVE IT!
Let’s just say I REALLY love it. In a way that makes me emotional, as someone who once wished she could be a pigeon so she didn’t have to go to work.
At Boo, we don’t think work should diminish us. We don’t want people wishing to be birds. Thank goodness there wasn’t a magic lamp in my pocket.
We simply believe everyone is entitled to a happy, healthy workplace. And after more than a decade spent helping organisations improve leadership, culture and wellbeing, we decided it was time to gather some of what we have learned in one place.
Ta-da! Boo Print for happiness
What do we mean by happiness at work?
What do we mean by happiness? Well, you’ll find out when you read it. But what we don’t mean is compulsory fun, good vibes only and cake in the kitchen. To be clear, we’re not against cake—only cake that is expected to compensate for poor leadership.
When we talk about happiness at work, we mean something deeper: feeling safe, valued and fulfilled. Knowing that what you do matters. Having the energy and opportunity to do your best work. Feeling trusted, accepted and able to be yourself.
This is a guide you can follow to optimise your chances of bringing these things into your workplace.
Look, most of us probably don’t expect to be delighted by every working moment. Sometimes work is difficult. Sometimes it is stressful. Sometimes there are spreadsheets. (Julia just did a little whoop of joy—she loves a spreadsheet.)
However, unhappiness should not be the price we accept for earning a living.
Our Boo Print explores seven of the conditions that help make happiness at work possible.
You might be absolutely nailing some of them—skip to another one. Dip in and out. Ask yourself the reflection questions again a year from now.
Remember, though, none of these ideas exists in isolation. Trust makes flexibility possible. Belonging makes it safer to contribute. Understanding our values helps us recognise why some environments energise us while others leave us feeling deeply uncomfortable.
Together, they help create the conditions in which people can thrive—or, to use Cath’s preferred term, flourish.
Practical, not perfect
We want this Boo Print to be useful. So, it combines research, more than a decade of Boo experience, questions for reflection and practical ideas people can try—ideas that we know work for us and for others.
It is partly for leaders who want to create the best possible conditions for their teams. But it isn’t only for leaders. We hope that anyone at any level of an organisation can pick up this document and find something to spark inspiration, reflection or energy.
We hope that even those who feel powerless at work right now will be able to use the Booprint to create a small oasis of happiness around themselves—and perhaps allow the ripples to spread a little further.
Because work takes up too much of our lives for unhappiness to be the default setting. And nobody should hate work so much that they wish they were a bird.
