nef consulting hosted over 200 HR managers, organisational development specialists, and executives from the public and private sector, to mark the launch of www.well-beingatwork.net. Follow us @happyworksurvey on Twitter, or contact Sarah Colston here at nef consulting.

You can take the survey now, for free, and measure your own level of well-being. 

Why should your organisation take notice of the Happiness at Work Survey?

• It draws together the best academic intelligence on well-being, coordinated through nef’s award-winning Centre for Well-Being over the last ten years.
• Its a relevant diagnostic because it asks people about things they actually care about (e.g. their personal life), and identifies issues where something can be done (e.g. more frequent communication between managers and staff).
• Its smarter: individual scores are all benchmarked against a national average which we compiled for the UK late last year. The algorithms which sit behind the calculations recognise the fact that well-being is dynamic and interactive: scores in one area affect your scores in another area.
• Its cheaper than typical surveys: its £6 per person for organisations with under 250 employees. The survey can be tailored with bespoke questions. It can be cheaper, per person, for large organisations.
• Its also sexier: it looks great, functions well, and only takes 5 minutes to complete. It calculates your results instantly, giving direct feedback straight away on the different aspects of well-being it work.
• Well-being at work is fundamental: happy employees are more likely to be productive, and less likely to take sick leave, or leave altogether.

A theory of change can be depicted as a map, or a journey, linking the activities of a programme, intervention or organisation to the short-term, medium-term and long-term outcomes experienced by service users, and other stakeholders.

Gaining an intimate understanding of how an intervention creates an impact on the lives of those affected through qualitative approaches leads to better quantitative analysis and modelling at later stages of Social Return on Investment (SROI) analysis. Before you begin valuing, you need to have data on outcomes; and before you collect data on outcomes, you need to make sure you are measuring the appropriate outcomes. A strong theory of change helps make SROI modelling easier, communicating potential impact considerations such as deadweight and attribution.

nef has developed proven templates to run storyboard exercises in workshops and focus groups in a range of settings, gathering data directly from service users. nef consulting has constructed theories of change for a range of programmes. We have found that the best SROI analyses are underpinned by strong theories of change developed early in the research process.

The course covers:
• The need for a theory of change in SROI analysis.
• When and where to use the approach, and with whom.
• Suggested process for engaging stakeholders, running workshops.
• Similarities/differences with logic models/frameworks, outcomes/impact maps.
• Writing and visualising the theory of change.
• Testing and verifying your theory of change.
• Communicating and presenting the results.

Next masterclass

9.30am – 4pm on May 16 2012

nef offices, 3 Jonathan Street, Vauxhall, London, SE11 5NH

Download a booking form

World-renowned expert on well-being, Nic Marks, is delivering a one day course designed to provide the latest thinking, research and tools to better measure, understand and act on well-being in the workplace.

Who should attend? Organisational leaders, HR practitioners, Managers and trainers.

For more information, call Sarah Colston on 020 7820 6367 or e-mail sarah.colston@nef-consulting.co.uk

Last night, the House of Lords passed the Public Services (Social Value) Bill - which will become the Social Value Act when it receives Royal Assent later this year. 

Social Return on Investment has grown since nef's first pilot in 2003, to become a key tool in social value assessment and cost benefit analysis. 

We see this as a momentous step in integrating an understanding of triple-bottom-line impact as part of assessing value-for-money for public sector funding.

Read the bill here (its only three pages!), and look out for a comprehensive analysis blog post coming soon.

Download Summary

The high streets across the UK are under continuing pressure from the economic downturn, changes in consumer expectations and competing forms of retail. Recent policy reviews of planning in the form of the draft national planning policy framework, the consultation of which closed in October 2011, and Portas review of England’s High streets, published in December 2012 have again focused people’s attention on hundreds of stuggling town centres in every corner of the country. There have been renewed calls in the media for action to reverse the decline of these centres of local economic and social activity: nef's response to Portas is here.

nef has provided responses to the Portas review and were consulted on its development. We have long been arguing for greater recognition of the role local, independent traders play in the retail mix – and for high streets to be reimagined as locally distinct places of cultural, leisure, social and economic opportunity, more generally. nef consulting has been working across the UK, putting these ideas into practice and helping to plug the leaks.

We've pulled together a summary of the work we've done recently for download; for more information contact Jonathan Schifferes at jonathan.schifferes@nef-consulting.co.uk or on 020 7820 6398.

nef consulting is partnering with IMA International to deliver a 5-day course on how to maximise value for money in international development. We'll be in Bangkok in July 2012 and Cape Town in October 2012. Click here for all the details.

To find out more about the work of ThaiHealth visit http://en.thaihealth.or.th/

For more information abut nef consulting’s work in public health, please contact David Tyrer on 0207 7820 6367 or david.tyrer@nef-consulting.co.uk

It will be a great opportunity to learn a bit more about what Nic has been working on with nef consulting and his latest ideas about improving workplace well-being.

Details: 19th Jan, 6.30pm, London

You can find out more and book tickets here. 

nef consulting contributed to the Business Well-being Network’s annual report, published this month. This year’s report does an excellent job of placing organisational well-being in the context of the national well-being agenda.

It explores how changes to the working landscape are making a focus on well-being and resilience increasingly relevant. Jody Aked offers her reflections on why workplace well-being is important and on the changes we wish to see in 2012,

“The good news is that well-being at work is not only good for employees; it is also in an employer’s direct interests… We believe that good jobs that bring positive life experiences and satisfaction should sit at the heart of how we design our economy and our work”.

To find out more, click here.

nef consulting are working with organisations and businesses in 2012 to learn more about the well-being of their employees using our new Well-being@Work survey, to be launched in January. If you would like to learn more, email Jody.