If you happen to be in London on Wednesday 21st October, the Employee Well-being Forum might be worth a visit. The programme boasts that “at this event you will hear a wealth of best practice case studies offering practical advice to improve wellness strategies and decrease absence and stress in the workplace through the recession”. Hmmmmmm…. That the Forum is taking place at Canary Wharf* is an irony that won’t be lost on many of the delegates, I’m sure…

I notice that Unilever is represented – you’ll remember we spoke about them in the last posting about costs and benefits of well-being. And Nic Marks from the fabulous New Economics Foundation,which gave us the (Un)Happy Planet Index (how efficiently we use resources to generate well-being) and the National Accounts of Well-being (personal and social well-being in 22 European countries). Apart from that I can’t see any connection between this forum and Positive Psychology….and you can’t talk seriously about well-being without talking about Positive Psychology, can you?

If anyone reading this is going to the forum I’d love to have your feedback.

*Venue:

CCT Venues-Canary Wharf
Isis Building – Thames Quay
193 Marsh Wall
London, E14 9SG

Thanks to garethr for the image

Here’s a great article on the value of Positive Psychology to business, covering all the basics from the benefits of positive emotions (e.g enhancing creativity and problem-solving) to hiring people on their strengths not their CVs.

Plus it mentions the work of two of my Positive Psychology News Daily colleagues, David J Pollay and Senia Maymin (founder), who also happen to be graduates of the Penn MAPP programme.

Image: Kevinzhengli

Thanks to Greg Quinting for the link

This month my Positive Psychology News Daily article focuses on the problem of applying Positive Psychology in business.

At the moment there are only about a dozen or so validated interventions (i.e. exercises which are scientifically ‘proven’ to increase your well-being); all of them are common sense/what your grandmother knew; none of them are rocket-science. They’re all suitable for use in 1:1 therapy and coaching situations, but are they suitable in business? There are very few interventions being tested in businesses, and anyway, application is more of an art than a science.

I think we need to build up a knowledge base of case studies of how PP is being applied in organisational contexts, and what the effects are, in order for businesses to be persuaded that Positive Psychology has many tangible benefits worth considering.