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Hyped on hygge

BCIT’s School of Business is using the renowned Danish cultural tradition to improve organizations’ well-being – and give students crucial people-management skills
amyfell
Helping organizations become more productive: Amy Fell, Program Head who leads Corporate and Industry Training at BCIT School of Business, believes the key is in continually improving the workplace environment.

On first impression, hygge, the Danish concept of comfort and contentment, conjures images of a cosy living room with a crackling fire and mugs of cocoa in easy reach. But Amy Fell, Program Head who leads corporate and industry training at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) School of Business, is thinking much bigger. For Fell, hygge, pronounced “hoo-guh,” may be just what Canadian organizations need to work better.

“My passion is contributing to good organizations and making them great places to be,” Fell explains. “From what clients tell me, the focus they want in training comes down to organizational well-being, to caring about their people. When there’s a shared understanding, a feeling of people being connected, the outcome is greater productivity.”

With this in mind, Fell has designed a business model composed of three concentric circles: people, purpose and productivity. In the spirit of hygge, well-being sits in the middle, radiating out to all three.

BCIT’s corporate and industry training department has long worked with industry on issues from skill shortages to building succession plans. With today’s sharpening imperative to attract and retain best-of-industry employees, organizations strive to keep improving workplace culture – you might even say, to put the hygge into human resources practices.

To accomplish that, they’re increasingly reaching out to the BCIT School of Business. The City of Maple Ridge, a longtime project partner, recently worked right in its home setting with the school on developing a Statement of Completion for Building Capacity. For a management team that would otherwise have had to commute a long distance to a BCIT campus, this made the difference in being able to participate versus not.

Anita Bhandari, the city’s manager of learning and development, health and safety, relates, “The school’s willingness to bring expertise out to our community has been great for our staff productivity. Their ability to personalize the relationship, availability/responsiveness and understanding of what we really desire helps keep this relationship productive. The school’s communication, their openness to consider the topics we desire and their ability to help shape the topics really helped. In addition, their willingness to develop customized workshop content that wasn’t already in their academic offerings was a huge benefit.”

Bhandari warmly recommends the school to other organizations.

Students feeling the hygge

For international student Eduardo Sanchez Martinez, the hygge principle of shared understanding will be key to whatever postgraduate startup he undertakes: computer-game programming, as is his background; or maybe off menu from that, opening a Mexican restaurant. His organizational development studies with Fell helped Martinez in the crucial skill set of managing behaviours.

“If an employee isn’t performing well, you look beyond that immediate situational factor,” he says. “What is their perception of their role? It may differ from yours. By making the effort to understand your people, you will get the whole picture. You will improve the work situation.”

Martinez is already finding this hygge-influenced approach productive, both in his work as an Apple employee and as a program analyst at the BCIT SITE (Sustainability, Innovation, Transition and Education) Centre, advising other students.

Paramith Rudrappa, now graduated and pursuing a master’s in administrative science, looks back to his BCIT School of Business experience as “going through a crucible, like a coal turning into a diamond.”

“It changed my life,” Rudrappa says. “Every instructor brought in so much practical knowledge, and I could see they were teaching out of passion and care, not obligation.”

As one example, Rudrappa cites Fell’s encouragement to get counselling for his math phobia. He did – and, for the first time in his life, faced down that often-daunting subject to score good grades.

BCIT Business excursion to the home of hygge

From September 23 to September 27, 2019, on an excursion with BCIT’s Executive Field School in Productivity Management, industry leaders can experience the home of hygge for themselves – and find out why Denmark consistently ranks high in the World Happiness Report and Better Life Index.

A cohort of 10 to 15 participants will have the immersive opportunity to study hygge and learn the key management skills that foster this renowned Danish cultural tradition. As well, participants will build relationships across multiple sectors with local leaders committed to workplace well-being and productivity potential.

Those interested in the excursion can visit bcit.ca/business/international/co-op-fieldschool.shtml. To find out more about BCIT corporate and industry training, visit bcit.ca/business/industry/training.