Burges Salmon: 'Winning last year's National Happiness Award has given us a springboard to build on and develop a more cohesive wellbeing strategy'

We know what it’s like. It’s been a long hot summer already. You’re looking forward to the holidays and there’s that issue with Dave in accounts that you need to deal with. In the middle of it all, here we are, cropping up in your inbox to announce the 2018 National Happiness Awards. Hooray!

“Why should I nominate,” you are thinking.

Well, apart from the chance to bring your team to one of the most dynamic and fun awards evenings in the UK, the benefits of being shortlisted and of winning go well beyond a swanky night out in Manchester in November.

Don’t take our word for it. Here’s what last year’s Happiest Workplace winner Burges Salmon, said: “It’s important to nominate to recognise the great work people do in your organisation. At Burges Salmon we work really hard to look after our people and make it a great place to work and it was great to win.”

Soon after the win, the law firm was also crowned Firm of the Year by legal sector website Roll On Friday. Judges recognised the efforts that the firm takes to ensure the happiness of staff and commented: “This is not us saying they are the best, but their own staff, and it means they are the happiest in the UK.”

In addition to the boost to morale, the firm also enjoyed a raised media profile thanks to the win.

And the feelgood factor continued. Here’s what Burges Salmon tells us about the ongoing benefits of being a National Happiness Awards winner:

• Winning the Happiest Workplace award has improved our reputation externally as a great place to work. We are seen as a business which cares about our people and we are called upon to speak at events about various wellbeing topics. Our Head of Development, Kerry James, has been asked to speak at two client conferences about the importance of mental health in the workplace.  
• Winning the award has given us a springboard to build on and develop a more cohesive wellbeing strategy in the firm, with the happiness and wellbeing of our people at the top of our agenda. We recently held diversity and wellbeing briefings for all our people, in which our Managing Partner spoke about the importance of having an open culture where people can talk about wellbeing issues such as mental health.
• Happy people want to stay. Morale has been high and as a result our turnover rates have been lower than the average over the past 12 months.
• We were recently re-accredited with Investors in People Gold award against the new, tougher standards. This award is particularly important because it is based on survey responses and interviews with our people, and the auditor commented on the positivity of the people she spoke with and the real progress since the last audit in 2015.
• Last but not least, we used our prize training to build the skills of our People Team at an event on a community farm and we are training a group of volunteers to take part in a stand-up comedy event for our Charity of the Year, Bristol Mind.

You just can’t argue with benefits like that, so why not boost your organisation and the people in it and nominate for the National Happiness Awards 2018.