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"Sixty-three percent of our employees have been
onboard ve years or longer," says Lau, who previously
worked at Lululemon Athletica, a company that some
former sta• have called a happiness cult. Lau says she
liked Vancouver-headquartered Lululemon's culture
but moved to Softlanding because she "needed more
challenge and better pay."
At Unbounce, a Vancouver tech company that builds
and markets website landing pages, one of the six core
values is happiness—specically, "delight everyone,
create opportunities that bring unexpected joy to those
around you." The general philosophy of its six found-
ers is simple: "Look after your people, your people will
look after customers, and the rest follows," says Melissa
Isaza, people and culture business partner.
Unbounce's 160 employees enjoy foosball, table
tennis, networking events, a $500 health and wellness
allowance and a paid four-week vacation, including
$1,000 in spending money. In an industry known as
Brotopia because most of its entrepreneurs and sta•
are young white men, the company also promotes
diversity. As of May, women accounted for 33 percent
of Unbounce's senior leadership, 38 percent of its engi-
neering and technolo'y management sta• and 42 per-
cent of its people managers.
The gender ratio is 50:50 at Vancouver market-
ing rm Kimbo Design. "Artists and creative people
often do their best work when they're unhappy," says
Kim Pickett, founder and creative director of the
10-person outt. "We have harsh deadlines in adver-
tising, and we can't fail because mistakes get broad-
casted to the world. Instead, I focus on looking for
ways to inspire creativity and improve employees'
work-life balance."
Pickett o•ers ™ex time, gives all sta• family mem-
berships to the Vancouver Art Gallery and does com-
munity outreach, including sponsoring local artists
and charitable organizations. "Small businesses have a
huge advantage," she says. "We're like a family. Every-
one has a say in our policies."
Healing powers
With much of the recent happiness cheerleading ema-
nating from the U.S., and especially Brotopia, how
much does it come back to stoking the res of capital-
ism? Is the new pursuit-of-happiness paradigm about
making owners and shareholders happy by forcing
workers to do more for less, with a grin on their faces?
Employees typically don't have the power to x funda-
mental organizational ™aws—toxic bosses, low wages
and stressful working conditions.
We know that workplace stress wreaks havoc on
organizations. In the U.S., it contributes to at least
120,000 deaths annually and racks up as much as
US$190 billion in health-care costs, a 2015 study by
researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities
revealed. The American Psychological Association
estimates that each year such stress gouges more
than US$500 billion from the national economy and
results in 550 million fewer workdays. In this country,
highly stressed workers are 26 percent more likely
to visit the doctor, according to a 2011 analysis from
Statscan's National Population Health Survey.
