Nic Marks is a statistician, speaker and author who pioneered workplace wellbeing. He founded the Centre for Wellbeing at the New Economics Foundation, creating the Happy Planet Index and the Five Ways to Wellbeing. Now, through Friday Pulse and his new book Happiness is a Serious Business, he shows why happy people and teams perform better.
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I’ve spent my career looking at data — first as a statistician, later as someone fascinated by what truly makes life and work worthwhile. Numbers can tell us a lot, but over time I realised something important: we don’t just want to know how many widgets were made or hours were billed. We want to know how people feel while they’re doing it.
That’s why I became known, slightly cheekily, as “the happiness statistician.” And why I wrote my new book, Happiness is a Serious Business.
Because I’ve come to see that happiness at work isn’t a fluffy extra. It’s the foundation of thriving teams — and the missing piece in far too many organisations.
Why “OK” is not OK
I’ve worked with hundreds of organisations over the years, and one pattern keeps repeating: lots of people are not miserable at work, but they’re not thriving either. They’re stuck in what I call “OK.”
At first glance, OK doesn’t look like a problem. People show up, do their jobs, and get by. But acceptable is not the same as successful. Teams stuck in OK lack spark — they’re less creative, less collaborative, and far more likely to drift into underperformance over time.
And here’s the kicker: when I run the numbers, the difference between OK and happy is huge. Happier employees are 20–30% more productive. They’re three times less likely to leave. Put those two together and the value they create is more than double that of someone who’s just plodding along.
That’s why OK is not safe. It’s a risk zone — and it’s why happiness is so important to take seriously.
What I’ve learned
Writing this book gave me the chance to distil more than two decades of work into a practical framework. It’s built on thousands of survey responses, client stories, and a simple belief: happiness is dynamic, measurable, and improvable.
At the heart of the book is the Dynamic Model of Team Happiness. It rests on three pillars:
- The Five Ways to Happiness at Work — Connect, Be Fair, Empower, Challenge, Inspire. These are the cultural conditions where people flourish.
- The Seven Successes of Happy Teams — the benefits that show up when happiness is present, from stability to creativity to profitability.
- Measure–Meet–Repeat — a simple rhythm of weekly reflection that turns feelings into feedback, and feedback into action.
It’s not theory alone. I’ve seen this approach work in small teams that turned themselves around within months, and in larger organisations that weathered massive disruption without losing their people or their culture.
Burnout, resilience, and happiness
Another reason I take happiness so seriously is its role in protecting against burnout. We all know how common burnout has become — exhaustion, detachment, and dwindling effectiveness. It’s costly for people and for organisations.
My data shows something striking: unhappy employees are much more likely to burn out, while happier ones are significantly better protected. Happiness acts like a buffer. It doesn’t make stress disappear, but it helps people cope and recover.
And this is not about gimmicks like free pizza or mindfulness apps. It’s about how people and teams work together. Factors like appreciation, respect, autonomy, learning and purpose are the types of things that build happy and successful teams.
Why I wrote this book
For me, Happiness is a Serious Business is both a manifesto and a toolkit. It’s my way of saying to leaders: stop dismissing happiness as something soft. It’s a hard-edged, strategic advantage.
Yes, happiness makes work feel better. But it also makes work work better. Happier teams innovate more, collaborate more, and perform more. They stay longer, cost less, and deliver more.
That’s why I’m passionate about this. Happiness isn’t frivolous; it’s functional.
An invitation
If you’re a team leader, senior executive, an HR professional, or simple someone who wants to improve the world of work, this book is written for you. My hope is that it gives you both the evidence to convince sceptics and the tools to take practical action.
Because in the end, we can’t control the turbulence in the world around us. But we can create workplaces where people feel good and do great work. That’s what this book is about.
And that’s why happiness, truly, is a serious business.
Happiness is a Serious Business is published by Rethink Press.
Find out more at Nic’s website
And you can watch the launch of Nic’s book here.