Sector:  IT/Computers
No.of Employees:  21-50
Region: London

Summary
Since its inception in 1991, the Happy founder, Henry Stewart has believed that the company has a responsibility to society and that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) should affect "everything we do" including their choice of clients. The company has successfully integrated responsible business practices into their business and have benefited from community recognition and continuing staff development.

Background
Happy is a computer training company, based in East London. It was established in 1991 to combine technical expertise and training skills in information communication technology (ICT) with an enjoyable learning environment for its clients.  Happy was ranked #12 on the 2004 Best Workplace Survey.

How they do it

• Community Partnership. Since 2001 Happy have worked in partnership with Tower Hamlets and City Groundswell to train volunteers working with homeless people to coach them in ICT. Tower Hamlets and City Groundswell operate a rolling peer support programme as well as on-line learning. Its objective is to remove people from the streets, hostels and supported housing to help them rebuild their lives through training and employment. The organisation contributes to addressing this problem by providing the homeless with access to the web, their own email address and on-line learning.

• Positive Workplace. Happy aims to empower people to reach their full potential in their work, provide the highest quality training in the UK, and set standards to be followed by others. It claims that its people are its greatest asset. To obtain the best from its staff, the company provides training and personal growth throughout their employment with Happy . Examples of the way in which this philosophy is implemented include:
  - Full disclosure of all information within the company, particularly detailed financial results
  - Upward appraisal of management as well as staff appraisals
  - Employees choose their own job title and write their own job description
  - Free ice cream at 4.00pm, for delegates and staff, to perk people up at the end of the day.
  - Every member of staff is entitled to draw on the 'timebank' hours to work with a specific charity (on average 5 days a month are used).
  - The company has also used staff interests to develop new business opportunities e.g. for example sending trainers to Africa to create sustainable training centres supporting staff desire to travel; provide development training for staff involved; and support the impact of IT within local communities in Africa.

• Responsible supply and purchasing. Happy have developed purchasing policies to ensure that suppliers share their values. They will also only work with customers who they believe support and share their values, and give staff the authority to make these decisions. It also has a policy of paying suppliers, mostly associate trainers, within three weeks.

• Broadening accessibility. In the past year is has redesigned online learning, employed a profoundly deaf trainer to deliver IT training in British Sign Language and is supporting the training of six blind trainers and offering 250 free places to the deaf unemployed. Although this work has been subsidised the aim is to create a successful business offering whilst meeting a social need.

What impact it has
Happy has a variety of initiatives to help benefit the wider community, these include:

• Happy have paid an endowment for one acre of rainforest for every 50 courses run for the past 16 years.

• Donating 10% of pre-tax profits to charity. 4% in cash donations and 6% in paid time. Last year, employees donated £75 in cash to a charity of their choice, within the guidelines agreed among the staff.

• The company provides a free license for use of its training manuals to schools and colleges throughout the UK

• The company trains charity employees in London to be effective IT trainers, using Happy Computers' training centre to train local unemployed and homeless people. Providing cheaper, tiered pricing structures for these groups.

• The company 'banks' 100 hours of time a year that can be drawn down by any member of staff to work on for a specific charity. An average of 5 days a month is used primarily to support small charities to make the most of their IT.

• In the last year, 10 computers have been 'recycled' to three local charities and 55 to a social enterprise which distributes PCs to disadvantaged families in Newham.

• 11 blind and partially sighted individual certified as trainers in a programme tied to the Institute of IT Training and a deaf trainer employed to deliver IT training in British Sign Language.

• The company aims to spread the word about integrating social impact into other companies' work. For example, Happy's hosting company has set up free hosting for charities and extended their involvement with local charities as a direct result of their contact with Happy.

Business Benefits

• Increased Staff Productivity. Staff turnover is very low, and the company has a waiting list of 2,000 for jobs and virtually no recruitment costs.

• Community Recognition. Happy has won a number of awards for their community work including the Lord Mayor's Dragon award, and the Community Award at the Computing Awards for Excellence.  They were also ranked #12 on the 2004 Best Workplace Survey.

• Customer Satisfaction.  Industry wide research in IT training in the summer of 2005, carried out by IT Skills Research, compared Happy's reputation among its customers to those of its competitors amongst theirs. Out of 11 categories, Happy came first in 8, second in 2 and third in one.