What does it take to truly infuse happiness and authenticity into the heart of a company? Today, we’re joined by a leader who’s dedicated his career to answering that question. Fábio De Pina, founder and CEO of HappyC, brings a unique perspective on fostering work environments where diversity, empathy, and purpose aren’t just ideals but are put into daily practice.

More information about Fábio here.

Transcript

*Please note that the transcript has been automatically generated and proofread for mistakes. But remains in spoken English, and some syntax and grammar mistakes might remain.

Elisa Tuijnder: [00:00:00] Today’s episode dives into a no nonsense approach to building happiness at work with a trailblazer from Portugal, a country at the forefront of the movement for authentic workplace well being. Our guest shares a refreshingly direct take on fostering genuine connections, purposeful leadership, and the art of tuning company values.

Into heartfelt daily actions. We explore a groundbreaking model for [00:00:30] empathy and legacy, while offering practical strategies for fostering vibrant, soulful company cultures. Before we dive in, you are listening to The Happiness At Work Podcast. by Management 3point0, where we are getting serious about happiness.

I’m your host, Elissa Tander, happiness enthusiast and [00:01:00] Management 3point0 team member. In this podcast, we share insights from industry experts, influencers, and thought leaders about what it takes to be happy, motivated, and productive at work, so that loving your job becomes the norm and not the exception.

We will be publishing every fortnight on Friday, so be sure to tune in and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to [00:01:30] today’s episode. We’re thrilled to have Fabio De Pina, the founder and CEO of Happy Seed with us. Fabio is a dynamic leader with a robust background in creating environments where authenticity, diversity, and happiness are encouraged and celebrated. Today, we’ll explore how Fabio leverages his expertise to enhance corporate and personal happiness.

Fabio, it’s so great to have you with us today. 

Fabio De Piña: Thank you for having me, Eliza, such a nice presentation, I feel humble with that presentation. Not [00:02:00] correcting, but just to phrase the correct way of saying the brand, it’s Happy. It’s like not happy C, happy. It’s like a merge between the word happy, And the word Habik, like to leave a Habik like, Habik.

Elisa Tuijnder: I double checked how I pronounce your last name, which I might have not done correctly, but then I didn’t check the so with you, so thank you for, for, for letting me know. [00:02:30]Hey, I am super excited to explore what you do there and all of your innovative approaches, but we cannot start the podcast without our signature question.

And that is, what does happiness mean to you? 

Fabio De Piña: Well, recently I, I started to think about that again, and I, I can think that happiness for me right now, it’s counting or experiencing more times of pleasure, uh, instead of pain or sorrow. For [00:03:00] me right now, it’s just trying to balance that. 

Elisa Tuijnder: That scale. 

Fabio De Piña: Yeah. Not anything more than that.

Elisa Tuijnder: Cool. Well, that’s, I hope that’s the case for you. Hey, so you’ve had a fascinating journey and loved reading your LinkedIn profile and diving a little bit deeper. But what we really like to do on the podcast as well is to just kind of really know who we have here. Who do I have in front of me, Fabio? What is, what is your personal and professional journey?

And why did you decide to focus on [00:03:30] happiness? And also authenticity is really important for you. 

Fabio De Piña: Okay, so it’s not like a plain sheet. I graduated on marketing and communication. While choosing marketing and communication in college, I didn’t have like anything special that I would like to be or to work in when I was a kid.

So I just chose that because I always liked to communicate, to be with people, to move people. And that seemed a really nice way out of college. While [00:04:00] working through this big insurance company at the time, I kind of naturally became a leader, not because I kind of knew how to do, uh, the job better than my colleagues, but because I always tried to think how we could do it better.

Okay. And it started to naturally turning me into a person that responsibilities just came and I would receive them and, and I would put [00:04:30] my finger on it, try to here and there, like, contest the status, the status quo, but not like, uh, facing forward, but try to, to, to bend it. And then I kind of started to mentor and coach new people that was arriving.

Uh, my colleagues, uh, in their jobs and afterwards, uh, a company, an IT company, uh, was, uh, trying to, uh, work on their turnover [00:05:00] and do things differently. So I was referenced by a friend of mine saying that this guy, talking about me, this guy Links to people. If the promise that we are delivering it’s true, it can impersonate them and it can really make it real tangible because that, that what I’ve been doing since young age, I, Created a pirate radio.

I created a events company with [00:05:30] my friends in college. I was the president of the final, I don’t know how to say in English, but the one that’s going to end college, we have this committee that we try to raise money to go on these holidays. So I was kind of the president though, exactly. So I was kind of the president now and I would do these crazy events.

And for me, that was the one thing that kind of moved me was really how [00:06:00] to experience and sense joy and happiness, because it’s a lot of things in this melting pot, it’s how women perceive happiness, how men perceive happiness, how, uh, the sophomores perceive what is happiness. How the young kids that are entering perceive happiness.

Almost all of the parties were at night with alcohol. So how can I like turn low this figure of alcohol and Emerging [00:06:30] in the sense of fun. So I would make these crosses between EJ, EJing with music and the words from cinema and then citations from like Aristotle’s or something. So it was a kind of a voyage that people with me, at least it’s what my LinkedIn saying, the recommendations and all of that.

So I, I, I have to believe. People with me, they feel that they feel safe. They feel heard, they feel seen, they feel less judged. And I [00:07:00] can scale that in a corporate way. So when you are recruiting, why you are recruiting this person? Because we are going to change this person’s life. We are going to mess with their expectations, with their ideas.

So what are we delivering that is true and that makes a match with this person? Because if this person comes in, we are responsible for that attraction. Me as an happiness manager, as a manager, then as to [00:07:30] not give happiness. Nobody can give happiness, but you can create the tools if you compromise with the persons, and then if you can scale that to groups, and then if you can escape and if you can scale that to clusters.

And then what I kind of trying to do is to, well, this is boring. We have to do these statistics, we have to do these questions. We have to make this fun, so how can we make this fun? I can’t guess, so I ask. [00:08:00] And if I ask, I’m extending this bond, exactly, that they count, and the value that is given is perceived at the same kind of tone.

You see, Eliza? 

Elisa Tuijnder: Absolutely. 

Fabio De Piña: Yeah. That, that would kind of drive me. So I became this happiness manager focused on the, um, party kind of thing first in the first two years. Then I tried to understand my job. So why, why people tend to stay, why, um, is it the [00:08:30] money, is it the family, is it the work? So I tried to study that and then try to see what other companies or countries were doing working on this field of happiness.

Then I went abroad. To have an intercontinental experience, different cultures where happiness tends to be different because we are in Europe and I went to work in Africa and The idea of happiness or happiness at work is very different. Like happiness and work doesn’t go on the [00:09:00] same line. Yeah. Yeah.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. And it depends also where in Africa, right? Like I’ve had some experience there myself and it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s very vast and very different everywhere, but yeah, super interesting. And then you took that back home and like inter incorporated it into your knowledge as well. 

Fabio De Piña: Exactly. And then I, I, I took it back home again and then I, uh, became a little bit hang, uh, uh, I don’t wanna say hangry, but a little bit, um, [00:09:30] yeah.

Great. . Yeah, because, uh, we, we can do better because happiness is just a profound word and state and. While branding that at work, we have an enormous responsibility because people want to believe in happiness and normally it’s conveying that happiness, it’s perceived from the outside. So in terms of work, we are talking about the wage or the title or 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah, or the benefits or the [00:10:00] car or 

Fabio De Piña: the Exactly.

And. Portugal, we have, we discovered this figure of the happiness manager. We started to insert them into companies, but I think we can do better in terms of making the people that really lead the company not to, or not to get people confused why, what is happiness at work as a field of employer branding discipline.

And just selling [00:10:30] happiness as a word, make it, making it without any word, just to, I don’t know, just to publicize what they don’t have to recruit that profile that they want. But once they get here, it’s going to be a problem because if you don’t find the promise, if you don’t find the structure, you are putting, uh, a different corpus inside of your body that will infect.

And we’ll shatter whatever that you have because it’s not really sustainable, you know, in Portugal we kind [00:11:00] of have that. So I kind of jumped out of the system, inside out, not to go against again, but to provoke them, but to, hey, listen. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. It’s no people thirst washing, right? It’s like, we have to actually live by it.

What we say. 

Fabio De Piña: Yeah, exactly. And that takes time, as you know, Eliza, That doesn’t go on three months or six months. So you just can’t do that. But that’s what I’m kind of, right now with Epic, I promote the [00:11:30] mentorship and consultancy to companies. I do assessments as well, trying to use a philosophical and a questionable way.

So how can we do better? And doing like, I work in a very simple method. So I kind of put this in, I try to lean everything, take the trash first. What, what, what doesn’t, what doesn’t fit, what is wrong, whatever. I just try to clean first everything. [00:12:00] Then I’ve, yeah, the first of that, then I tried to make a plan, but the plan only works if you start to act.

So. I promote errors. I want to find the most errors that we can have, such in communication or in terms of, uh, job function descriptions, whatever, the, the minus detail, I want to find the errors and learn from them because I think errors are met. We, you are not starting from a zero point, you know? [00:12:30] Yeah, 

Elisa Tuijnder: absolutely.

Fabio De Piña: So you have, I have the lean at first, then I have design doing, so I kind of make the plan, but I don’t know. I go along, I do, and then I try to find the MVPs, I try to find the first best cases that we can create a successful one and try to replicate, try to read, try to analyze again and do, do, do, do. I just don’t like bureaucracy, I don’t like to, so I’m kind of a non [00:13:00] consensual person as well.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s the thing with culture, right? You can’t just say from tomorrow. We’re now a people first culture or everyone is happy. Like, it’s a thing that you have to build and that you have to enforce. And I like also your approach of finding those MVPs, finding those culture warriors or whatever, the people who really embody what you want to write on your walls, because otherwise it’s just, you know.

It’s just a word on the wall. And, and, and then we [00:13:30] get back to misalignment from both sides and that we’re not getting anywhere. One of the things that I read on your LinkedIn profile, when I was reading your, your wonderful, like, uh, the names or titles that you had, then I saw one of them was Chief, Chief Heart Officer.

And I can totally see now why. I think you can feel it. So happiness, I like sometimes using the word happiness because this includes so much more than well being or engagement or all of these kind of things. And that’s why, you know, happiness at work is more for me, but I really like this concept of chief heart officer because [00:14:00] you’ve just, Widen it even further.

It gives you like, sort of, kind of like a warm , uh, you know, thing around the circle around it. , 

Fabio De Piña: that title Lee originally kind of, um, took it from me as well, because I really like that from Claude Silver. She’s the chief heart office of the Dana Media. Yeah. Which she’s a wonderful personality and I try to, uh, learn as much as I can from her.

And it’s really that we, we lent [00:14:30] empathy. So that title, I took it or I, I made it to myself. Let’s put it like that, because I was hired to work with this enormous IT group to work with the CEOs of the group. So this is a holding and this is a very large group. And I was hired to try to make that, although we have companies in different cultures, Uh, let’s try to find a unique approach or how we tend to [00:15:00] scale happiness and empathy and growth productivity in all of the group.

And the first thing that I saw when I was, uh, doing the first interviews was the lack of empathy. People, 

Elisa Tuijnder: they,

Fabio De Piña: they, they, they, it’s, it’s hard, I don’t want to color no one or to give school to no one, but it’s hard for people to manage emotions in the working environment [00:15:30] because of the pressure, Eliza, because of the demands.

And you, you wouldn’t see that it was so easy when I was in the room. One of the things that I teach to these CEOs was the one who has the questions. So if I want to ask you something in this tone, with these words, with this cadence, I’m going to low your rhythm. And then you are going in a ripple effect, extend that rhythm to people.

So I was trying to, [00:16:00] first of all, I was not trying to talk about numbers and how we can be perceived as the biggest. No, I really want to work this from the top to the bottom, because if I can do this with the chairman, with the CEOs, we are not going to be able to do this down there. So I created these dynamics.

I created this office of active listening. Love that. Yeah. That, that I called in the inside of the company, the heart beating sessions. So people would come to me [00:16:30] in a 45, 60 minutes, uh, sessions, people would come to me and that time it’s yours. So build your own happiness over there. If you come to me, I’m only there to assist you.

Not to guide you, not to say what you have to do, but to assist you. Like to be your mirror, but the mirror is talking to you. So people would come to me talking about. You know, dude, from bullying situations from the boss to the [00:17:00] fact that they don’t have time for themselves when they get home because they are tired and they still have their babies and still have their husbands.

And other situations that, um, I don’t want to do this. I want to be like an actor or whatever. And I would be there. And when people asked me what was my thoughts, what they do, I was always very empathetic using the three layers of, uh, an [00:17:30] embedded communication. So the compassive one, the cognitive one and the emotional one.

And it was nothing that it would be written. So I was really there listening to, to, to people. From that kind of dynamics, I got a lot of, uh, information, like the A players on our, on our company, the profiles that we should not let go because they are really value on the market and they treasure something more than money in our company.

So this guy is giving me what he needs. I’m [00:18:00] listening, let’s provide me exactly what he needs and try to actually build. His own personal EVP, try to find his attractive vortex so that we can try to see can we find our profiles like this inside our company, inside our group, and then outside. So if we actually listen to people with their nonverbal communication as well, they are all, they are already giving everything that we need to know.

So it has to be true. And I think you can only do that if you really [00:18:30] care. If you really care. And that doesn’t mean that you have to be soft. I’m not a soft guy, Elias. I’m not a soft guy. I tend to have bad temper as well. I, I don’t want to be this paladin or this statue to no one, but I really want to try every day and it’s hard.

So if you speak vulnerability in a corporate way, that is. understand by corporates, you will get there. So imagine me, I work like this, with this thing on my head. I don’t, I don’t tend to fit in [00:19:00] the normal kind of corporate like suit, but I speak the same language. I’m tough, I’m hard and I like results and I don’t work with, uh, I think I work with data, but data and emotions are just a team floor.

You have to really. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. I think you might actually speak the corporate language better because you understand both sides of it. You know, like it’s not just the hard stuff. It’s not the bam, [00:19:30] bam, bam. And I don’t want to listen to people that people are just like, you know, something I can replace. You actually also understand.

That, you know, your people are your, your greatest asset. And actually, you don’t need a big consultancy firm to come in and tell you what you’re doing wrong. Your people already kind of know what, what is going wrong and where it’s going wrong. They might not know it from everywhere. But if you listen enough, you can, you can pull all of the information together.

Um, and, and that is super, super important. Um, and, and so [00:20:00] valuable, right? And so incredibly valuable. And if you think about it also so cost effective. Of course, of course. 

Fabio De Piña: You don’t have to hire more people, you don’t have to spend more money in training and people to know again. You already know, I know, but the question is why the machine keeps going like this?

Elisa Tuijnder: I mean, that is what I question every single day. Why is it not, uh, ingrained study after study? And even, you know, studies can be boring. You [00:20:30] know, they can be fluff and they can be, you know, supported by, but this is also stuff that we see on the ground, right? We know when we help our people, we know when we listen to our people, that we’re going to get good information.

We also know that if we nurture them, they’re not going to leave as much. They said they’re going to, they’re going to try and stay. You started with, you know, the problem of people leaving and attrition, you know, that’s just about actually treating people well. And that doesn’t mean you have to get them a Ferrari, you just have to listen to them and [00:21:00] make them feel like they’re in the right spot and that they have something to say.

Eliza, 

Fabio De Piña: a simple ting, a simple ting, a minor detail. You as a subordinate, you make a request for a meeting with your boss. And for whatever reason, you can’t attend to that meeting. And you, you, you warn him in advance. Oh, look, I can’t go. Sorry, blah, blah, blah, blah. Your boss makes the same move. He makes the appointment, [00:21:30] he makes the request.

You get to that date, he didn’t told you and he skips the meeting. What, what does this mean to you? So you add the, the, the common sense of telling, Hey, look, I need, I know that you’re at this meeting, but I can’t attend to, so free your space to do whatever. Then we can reschedule when I, when it’s possible.

But he didn’t, didn’t did that. I had this situation. I asked the [00:22:00] boss, why didn’t you warn your, your, the people that were hungry? He said, because I don’t have this, this one-on-one with him, and I have this DI always position myself when I’m hired or working in the companies that you can fire me at. Will I work for the people?

Yeah. That means that I work for you. So I have to protect the company even from you. So if it comes to a place that I’m a device, like bringing messages [00:22:30] from here or transporting me, I, uh, which is not for me. So I am the guy that, Hey, look this guy. It goes to the, to the bed and to the pillow with, uh, 100 or 200 persons in his head, like, now multiply that with families and wages, blah, blah, blah, it’s not easy.

But hey, guy who sleeps with other people, these are actually the people, so if you are taking them to the bed with you, at least say hello in the morning, you know? I kind of, I kind of talk [00:23:00] like that. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Make a coffee. 

Fabio De Piña: Exactly. Make a coffee, please. You know, borrowing the shirt, like, damn. And, and I was talking with this guy and I was telling him, so your time word is worth more than the, the other person’s time, is that it?

And he stayed quiet. I’m going to re ask this, but between you and me, is your time worth more than my time? And he [00:23:30] couldn’t say, and that was the answer. I ended up the meeting, I shaked hands and we went, well, then this is a cycle, feedback sessions, whatever, but you understand Eliza what I was getting there.

This detail, this minor detail is happiness. And companies, they don’t know. And what, and what I perceived more, it’s not about the directors or the chiefs of officers. It’s more the medium managers, because they are, they have, they’re [00:24:00] getting it 

Elisa Tuijnder: from above. They 

Fabio De Piña: lack of this information of how to communicate, how to understand one another.

And that is. Like 70 percent for you to be happy, to smile, you know, just like that if you enter. So me as an happiness manager, I tend to bend this with the ether, like imagine not only the walls, the phrases of course, but any internal radios, the normal team buildings, the MP hour at [00:24:30] four o’clock by the department of whatever.

And then we, we, we send forums and questions. Did you have fun? It’s not like a thing that is mandatory. It’s like working. It’s like cholesterol. It’s like working with the good side of the FOMO effect, you know? Oh, I have fear of it. I love that. But it has to be true. So I have to ask you, imagine further, uh, Eliza, did you felt that I was manipulating you?

I have to do questions [00:25:00] like this, you know? Because if you start to do it in a normal way, it’s gonna be normal. So now you know that it’s a problem. safe place for you to communicate and a question or a curiosity. It’s not going to be confused for unsuspicious things or whatever, because the environment it’s cool.

And, but this takes time because you are. You are messing with the age question. Now we have four generations in the companies, the [00:25:30] culture, the languages, the pornographs. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah, and it’s not just like shifting a organic grammar or getting a new emailing system, right? It’s, we’re dealing with human emotions and human emotions are complex and, you know, businesses are just complex systems.

And trying to Treat them like they’re compact systems is sometimes also really important, right? Because we try to really put it all into the organic grammar. We try to put it all like this. And the dynamic has to be like that. I mean, when you said this thing, like, yeah, my, I didn’t have to tell them, you know, sometimes, you know, we’ve been beaten to death with, [00:26:00] like, Simon Sinek and the why and why and why.

But people don’t even ask the why, like, Why am I doing this? Like, why am I not communicating? Because it’s always been like that. This why thing goes everywhere. It should go everywhere with us. Does your workplace feel stuck in a rut? Are silos and outdated leadership styles stifling creativity and collaboration?

At Management 3point0, we understand these [00:26:30] frustrations. That’s why we offer tailor made training programs designed not just to enhance skills, but to transform entire organizational mindsets. With our expert guidance and vision, our workplace where barriers are broken down, and everyone is empowered to contribute their best.

And leadership not only manages, but also but motivates and inspires. Ready to create a thriving workplace culture? Then visit our website at management3o. com and see [00:27:00] how we can help your organization build a happier, more productive workplace.

Fabio De Piña: Is there a way that I can feel better understood by you? So easy. Why don’t we do that? Because we are not, we are not used to it. And the person who does it, like I told you before, at least this is my experience. Why is he asking this? Why, why does he want to know this? Like, why this is very suspicious? No, I just want to know how to [00:27:30] better communicate.

I really think, and I really think the, the way that I’ve been making my career and gathering the, At least the, the, I tend to find it successful because I, I’m, I’m still doing it and I, I’m paying my bills. It’s not because I want to understand how to better manage, you know, we have a lot of managers, manager of this, manager of that, whatever.

You have to, you really have to have the name, but I think it’s because I really [00:28:00] want to understand mentality, K pop. You know, I want to, I want, I want to do this kind of straw, straw man, iron man kind of test with myself. So if I have this belief and this belief is dismountable, it’s huge, it’s a Goliath belief, let me be my own David.

Because if I’m so sure of it, why don’t I put myself to the test? And once you do that, once you do that with yourself, it’s [00:28:30] kind of easy to inspire others with. And in positions of decision, and I like to decide, I don’t like indecision in real life. Indecisions take you to kill yourself. Indecisions take you to death, you know, I like to decide.

So I decided to borrow, to, to really, Be able to do this work and feel joy doing it because I have to be my own happiness manager. I have to be myself. Of course. I have to be myself. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Authenticity again. [00:29:00]

Fabio De Piña: I have to be myself and I have to be myself dealing with the big ones. So if I consider myself a big one, with the big ones that I have to work, so I position myself doing that right now.

And, uh, it’s going great, actually, I’ll be invited for, for some lectures and people start, I think they are starting to, I don’t know, maybe see something in my message. And that is a little bit scary as well, because I really [00:29:30] believe it. Actually bringing 

Elisa Tuijnder: about change. 

Fabio De Piña: Yeah. Change, change always scares a little bit, right?

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. All of us, all of us. But you know, and that’s so funny, right? Like, you know, that believing yourself and that unwavering belief and also standing true to your authentic self is so important throughout. But it’s also the one thing that sometimes, I mean, depending on who you are, but it can be wavered quite quickly as well, right?

Or can be shook sometimes. And you have [00:30:00] to kind of find that little straw again sometimes and really go back to. What you really believe in and what you, what you’re, why you’re there. And if you don’t have that, then you’re not probably, I mean, you’re not doing the right thing and they’re not fully, fully, you know, living yourself to your potential.

Fabio De Piña: You are completely right. Look, in this, I’ve been doing this job since 2017. In the first two years, I appeared in all of national media, sensational media, and specialized media [00:30:30] as well. And it kind of led me to this burnout that was horrible. From that burnout, I experienced my first state of depression.

So I experienced depression, really hard depressions twice. So I knew when the pandemic started, it was for me, I’m sorry for the, the bad that happened to a lot of people, but that situation for me was cool. Cool is not the word, but. 

Elisa Tuijnder: But you, it was familiar, or at least you knew how to deal with it. [00:31:00]

Fabio De Piña: Yeah, because it was very hard for me.

Like my mind was, was not in the best state. So years went by and I really understood, like, I like what I do, but not the way that I’m doing it because it’s stressing me out. I’m not, I’m not me. I’m trying to pretend. You’re 

Elisa Tuijnder: giving too much of yourself then as well. 

Fabio De Piña: Yes, yes, yes, yes. I was just giving, giving, giving, giving, giving.

Like, but I don’t want to give up on this. [00:31:30] So what do I really like to do? What do I really like to do? What, what is my passion? Because professionally, I didn’t have any, like I said earlier, I didn’t have anything while in college like that I want to do and ask for another footballer. No, I just want to be a dad.

I just wanted to grow up, be a father. That was me. And I’m a father of a 10 year old girl. And that comes to the story. Why? Because when I asked myself, what, what do I really like to do? Well, I like to sing. I like to sing a lot. [00:32:00] And I’m a singer. I have, I have a band. I have singles on Spotify and on YouTube, and I like to sing.

So I need to sing. To sing, I have to have time. Time is always, time is always, always the currency, not the coin, not the paper. It’s time. But I don’t want to I don’t want that time to be my currency. I want that the name, the name, my name will be the currency, the [00:32:30] brand, you see? My personal brand has to be the currency.

So I can be at the, I can give the at least time that I can get and earn the maximum amount of money that I can earn doing well for me and for others. So in late 2023. I equated the corporate with the corporate team, so I started in the IT field, I passed to the medical field, I went to the logistics[00:33:00] field, and for me it is okay, I’ve seen the major, I don’t have to see anything more, I have to go and be happy for me, for this to really work on, so I created Epic, While creating Happy, the first sweats came because now I have to earn for me.

I have to make money for me. I have a daughter too, that I am, that I have obligations. And I want to pay for studio time, I want to make music. Oh my God. [00:33:30] I, I, I quitted, I quitted, I quitted in the next second in my mind, I quitted. No, I’m going to, to, to stay. But here we are. It’s a big daunting task. Exactly.

But the cost was, Eliza, what is the cost of opportunity? To get more burnouts and depressions? Or maybe 

Elisa Tuijnder: To get more time and to do more of the things that you want and to also help other people. Yeah, to make time count. 

Fabio De Piña: Mmm. Bye. Companies are always telling us that our time values that [00:34:00] type of dollar or that type of euro.

No company is going to say what my wage is, you know? Me, myself and I only Me, myself and I knows the value of my time and my name. I know this is a very audacious thing to do, but I’m actually being living it. I don’t know who tell who told this Aristotle or Socrates, whatever, but the way the, the, the, the quicker way to be the person that you want to be is actually being, 

Elisa Tuijnder: [00:34:30] be the per, and it’s not 

Fabio De Piña: going to be, yeah, know, it’s, it’s not gonna be easy, but it’s giving me happiness.

It’s giving me happiness, and I think that I’m doing a better job right now. As a consultant partner, as a business guy, as a singer, then I was In a few months and years, and I would like that everybody sends these, you know, like could really send this. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. Yeah. The growth, the [00:35:00] growth that you go through.

Hey, one of the things that I really picked up from the stuff that you, that you write on your website and on your LinkedIn page is that you use the word employer branding. Now, I know what the word employer branding is, but you don’t see it very, used very often, unfortunately. And I just want to, like, in your words, what does it mean and how important is it for it to align?

I can kind of guess the answer, to align to the rest of the, of the values of the corporate side of things, [00:35:30] the business side of things. 

Fabio De Piña: Look, so companies would hire me to work on their happiness from inside out. Once the team really starts to work inside, they would like to be able to get to know that, Oh, this is a fantastic company that works on happiness, not only to increase the company’s value, but also to retain the ones that they didn’t want to go out.

And to recruit the top and the most talented profiles in the market. So I started, like I told you to [00:36:00] understand more my work and I started to understand the power of brands. And employer branding is simplifying the definition is to ensure that your reputation lives up to its name. Okay. It’s working on your brand’s reputation.

So your brand’s reputation is not what you say it is. It’s what people say that it is. So if we have an happiness manager, we need to testify inside if this guy is really managing happiness and if [00:36:30]he’s managing, managing happiness, how can we work this on, you know, employees advocacy? How can they? How can we talk about their company without us make them, without us manipulate him?

How can we turn this brand such as an attractive brand as Nike or Adidas or whatever that people really want to choose to go work for that company? And not only all, but all the messages have to be happy messages. They have to be true. I always did [00:37:00] give this example, Amazon and Tesla. They say that you are going to work hours, hours, it’s going to be tough.

It’s going all the work is, it’s just for the rough people, for the ones that want, you know, kill themselves for whatever. But it’s a true message. It’s a direct message and they are not fishing in an ocean. They are fishing in a small aquarium. They, they really, You know, the people that they want because they are conveying a message that is going to be received [00:37:30] by people that see themselves in that environment.

So they are telling, this is how we work. And this is why I like to work with Employee Red, and I work only with companies that want to, or to start their employing branding agenda, or they have a department because again, and I told you earlier again, Eliza, if I wanted to go to advertising or publicity, I would.

But I don’t want that. That’s 

Elisa Tuijnder: not what we do. That’s not what it is. 3point0, 

Fabio De Piña: it’s very, very important. It’s very important to work [00:38:00] on your AVP, on your attractors for vortex, what is the emotional salary that people tend to take more into consideration, aspirations with your level of growth at the company.

How does extend the flexible time with the family, benefits, wherever, all of that components of that details. Are part of your brand, like a sneaker, like a short, like a logo tip, like an advertisement that you have with Cristiano [00:38:30] Ronaldo. Your brand is always, always communicating actively or online or offline.

So you can do actively things to communicate your brand. You don’t know if, let’s imagine the worst case scenario, your CEO was accused of a bad thing. So it’s not only the CEO that is accused of a bad thing. It’s the brand itself. So online, your presence online, if you go back 

Elisa Tuijnder: to Tesla, [00:39:00] you know, good example of that.

It is very linked. 

Fabio De Piña: Yeah, exactly. So employer branding, it’s very, very important to accumulate this happiness at work for me on my understanding in the environment that I work, that is mainly in Portugal. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Every single time I speak to people from Portugal or with companies from Portugal, Portugal is so far in this, I mean, you know, happiness, there’s a lot of happiness schools and there’s the happiness business school is there, there’s a lot of thought leaders coming from Portugal around this, but the company is also really [00:39:30] livid and the lips, there’s not just lip service to it and it’s really great to see that and each time I speak to people from Portugal I’m like, Man, the rest of the world can still learn, can still learn something from, from this.

Fabio De Piña: No, no, it’s, it’s, it’s plopping. Like I said, we have, we have a lot to do, but the, the lot that we have been doing mainly very, very good. You’re going to have right now the, the happiness camp again in Porto. [00:40:00] Last year, it was a huge event. So it’s, it’s really important for us because we work a lot. Like we work a lot.

We learn, we work more or less like nine to 10 hours. We have one of the lowest wages on Europe. Product too. You do? Yeah. Yeah. It’s ridiculous that the prices of the prices of everything, it’s rising Yeah. Have been going up. Yeah. And people, if this is the way that economy is going, people want to spend time with their one.

You know, people want to work remote. [00:40:30] People want the hybrid situation. So if you can give us money, at least give us time. And these happiness business school camps and other entities are really like rising the, the, the cultural company environment. Go on that way. And I’m glad to be part of that game as well, because we know that companies need to sell, companies need to sell.

They, they, they, they give a lot of value to society because they provide, uh, the goods in a massive scale that we need at the service and we need companies. Okay. But [00:41:00] companies need people and you know, companies, they are not like robots. They are not the transformers. The company, the building is not going to transform in the humanoid itself.

The, the, the doors and the windows started talking to you. People are, people need time. People need to rest their heads, rest their spirits. People need to connect with one another, you know, because we are beings of connectivity and we spend so much time with our heads on our computers in our [00:41:30] phone and we are becoming binary.

Like wake up. Ones and zeros. Ones and zeros. Yeah. Like wake up, eat, do that, yell. Oh, I don’t have time. Do that. But And you don’t says, you know, you don’t says. Eliza, I’m going to challenge this, uh, see people on the streets, I don’t know if your environment is like mine, but in Portugal, I’m going to challenge you at the same.

See the colors that they wear, see the colors that people wear. [00:42:00] I 

Elisa Tuijnder: mean, I live in Berlin, I live in Berlin, and it’s going to be black, so 

Fabio De Piña: In Portugal, it’s the same thing. You know? See? Yeah, it’s the uniform. Yeah, it’s like, it’s like, uh, it’s like a drift, you know? Like, we don’t have time, we don’t smile, we don’t We are always with this anxiety and preoccupations.

So employer branding is important. If Nike says do it, Nike is asking you to do what? It’s important. Outrageous, go against the lines, go against the rules, [00:42:30] you can do it better, blah, blah, blah. What’s your company saying with the claim, with the logo? What is the company saying? Because when this guy or this girl is about to enter here, he wants to find a place that he’s going to spend 8, 9, 10 hours a day.

Like 250 hours, I don’t know, a week or a month, like more, plus then 2000 hours a year. Like it’s 260, 70 days. Man, you have to provide a [00:43:00] happiness, you feel the happiness place. It’s your brand. It’s like a family. Tohinder, it’s the way that it’s spelling. Tohinder, it’s your last name? Tandr, 

Elisa Tuijnder: yeah. Tandr. 

Fabio De Piña: You are alive Tandr, but you have the dead Tandr and the mum Tandr and the brother Tandr Tandr.

You all have Tandr as last name, but you have your only name, dead Tandr. Makes the difference in who you are as a family, but you still need a family. Companies need to not be a [00:43:30] family because they are not, but to bring the, the same warmth, the sales, the same film, because we are going to spend a lot of time there.

The same warmth. Yeah. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. It’s nice too actually, that you, that you really made the connection. ’cause I, I genuinely thought that was the case also because of the fact, you know, that Portugal has such of the low wages, but it’s such on the forefront of this. But it’s nice also to hear somebody who’s in the field to actually kind of say.

We can’t give you the money, so we’re giving you something else. And we’re trying and it’s a silver lining, I guess, right? Unfortunately, we’re starting to really run out of time. [00:44:00] And this is really, really interesting. But before we kind of just wrap up, we always want to sort of get towards the end. Also.

towards a practical, tangible thing. You know, we’ve, we’ve talked about how employees have to, or companies have to do all of these things. And, you know, we have talked about communication and all of these kinds of things, but do we want to try and pull out one thing that people can like leave this podcast with, that they can also start trying to practice?

A bit like you just challenged me to see the colors. Can we try [00:44:30] and find something like one practical thing within the company that people can start to be. Part of the movement, part of the, part of the battery. 

Fabio De Piña: No, of course, I can give you two or three examples. Uh, we, I created with my colleagues, uh, in this company, hobby kind of, I don’t say, groups, hobby groups, technical groups as well.

We created a band, a band of the company. They went to do and perform shows. We created a group for expats. [00:45:00] Uh, wifes and husbands, because when we started to see the numbers of turnover of people that we used to hire abroad, the spouses, they didn’t, they didn’t have no network, no person to communicate. So we, we started to create that pair of groups inside of the company.

We created this, I don’t know how to say it in English, but it’s a check, a school, a school check for all the kids, for all the, the, the sons [00:45:30] and daughters or the, um, our entire company. So if you have one, two, three, four or five daughters until the age of 18, we would pay for all of the material for the school so that you guys don’t have to, to pay that.

We created the Friday lunches. So every Friday, uh, I worked with this company that would outsource a lot of workers as well, but every Friday we, we do this company lunch in Porto and in Lisbon. We invited everyone who come to the [00:46:00] company and the ones that couldn’t food and the, and the happiness would get to them.

So it was amazing. And this still continues. I’m not at the company right now, but this still continues. And they, they extended the, the, these kinds of situations even more. It’s a, it’s a cool company. So these are some examples that I can show you the heartbeating sessions that I, that I told you. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, it’s. Really like that family building. Oh, Fania, this has been really, really enlightening and really, really interesting. Thank you so much for making my [00:46:30] Friday here. What if people want to hear more from you, whether that is your, whether that is your music or your corporate events or, you know, actually your, your corporate things, your consultancy and workshops, where can people find you?

Fabio De Piña: Well, in LinkedIn, of course, uh, I have my Instagram, uh, it’s at, uh, happy. co as well. And I have my personal Instagram, it’s they call me Fabio and my music, [00:47:00] it’s Fabio again, but with a minor difference. It’s Fabio like F A B I W H O, like Fabio Kuhl, because I’m a lot of Fabio’s, that is my artistic name.

Elisa Tuijnder: Cool. I’ll add this to the show notes because yeah, I’m sure people are, are intrigued and I really want to go to one of. Your family events now, I mean, Portugal family events, you know, your corporate family events, they sound amazing. [00:47:30] All right. So thank you so much again. Thank you for making my Friday.

This has been fantastic. And yeah, let’s hopefully see each other again in some capacity, whether that be on the podcast or somewhere else. It would 

Fabio De Piña: be amazing, it would be amazing. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you and the audience and thank you for the way that the conversation was.

Made, I really felt like super cool, super nice. You are an amazing person to converse with. Thank you. Just thank you. Thank you for making my Friday as well. Thank you. [00:48:00] All 

Elisa Tuijnder: right. Thank you. You’ve been listening to the Happiness at Work podcast by Management 3point0. Oh, where we are getting serious about happiness.

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