Happiness increases productivity

Asif Upadhye, director and co-founder of Never Grow Up, has facilitated over 100 training programmes for various organisations in different sectors over the last eight  years. Upadhye enjoys facilitating team sessions and sharing experiences that he has gained in his career and hopes to change the world by making employees happy. 

Every time an organisation crosses a milestone, the focus moves more towards business and less towards its people. Speaking of which Upadhye says, “Our vision is to drive happiness at work and take effort in every direction that influences and impacts culture and work-life positively. We strive to keep reminding the organisations that people are not an expense, but an investment and must be given a secure, challenging, as well as a fun work environment to thrive in.”

In the past eight years, Never Grow Up has worked with an ample number of organisations and has discovered many common problems. “Resistance to change, lack of transparency and sometimes too many changes become an obstacle in the way people work. Another aspect is that not many companies believe in building a talent brand that will attract people and reduce their cost of acquisition. Thus, building campaigns for driving initiatives with razor-sharp focus becomes integral for an organisation,” he says. 

Every organisation has the HR department that takes care of its employees’ well-being and organise events to help them fit into the organisation. Upadhye’s company operates on similar lines but there is a slight difference. His team takes the initiative and gives the ideas to the HR heads and business leaders to execute personalised solutions that impact people across levels.

They’ve created over 20 modules to work with. During their initial years, they spent two years crafting and creating these modules. “We have conceptualised, created and executed over 150 customised and unconventional team experiences for a team of 10 to 1300 people. These have been spread across areas like communication skills, business etiquette, team building, conflict management and creativity to simply creating something for teams to unwind after a hard day’s work! We specialise in creating modules that are designed to suit a particular culture while using the arts to address people’s challenges at the workplace,” he says.

Consulting, talent analytics, employee engagement, employer branding are few of the services that the company offers. “Our offerings range from understanding what drives individuals using an exhaustive happiness quotient pulse survey to cascading POSH (prevention of sexual harassment) to driving mental health and wellness initiatives. From facilitating town halls or communicating your talent brand story, crafting creative internal communications campaigns to providing recruitment media services, every offering is built through design thinking while keeping the employee in mind,” he adds.

Upadhye and Never Grow Up practice what they preach. The company’s work culture stands for what they believe in and thus before they recommend anything to the client, they experiment with it internally. It also helps the organistaion maintain a happy work culture and satisfied employees.

There are people who could misuse the liberated work culture. Upadhye believes that having a liberated work culture doesn’t mean there are no standard operating procedures or regulations to abide by. Also, trust is a two-way street. However, the policies have been crafted in an attempt to be fair to all. Despite having flexible work timings, the option of work from home, or even travel allowances, if an employee still chooses to misuse the freedom, it raises a direct question on their integrity and not the company. 

“Our philosophy is simple. Just because some may misuse a perk does not mean one shouldn’t have it at all. Rather, build a fail-safe process that has room for improvement,” Upadhye says, adding, “To take baby steps towards work-life integration is more realistic than work-life balance and to ensure that you utilise your energy in the right direction, keep your priorities straight. Procrastination versus productivity is an ongoing battle.”