Head of People and Talent, MAPP - 'Happy people work harder'

Sean Greathead, Executive Director and Head of People and Talent at commercial property operator MAPP, arrived for a six-week assignment. Ten years and 500 employees later, he explains how sweating the small stuff built one of the industry's happiest workforces.

It began with HR, and never ended. "I did a degree in HR and economics, with honours in HR," says Greathead. Raised in South Africa, he studied at the University of Cape Town from 1993, then added a four-year MPhil in Engineering Management. In 2006 he became national learning and development manager in Cape Town for gym chain Virgin Active, overseeing learning, development and talent management on a £750,000 budget covering the head office, seven regions and more than 90 facilities.

During his time working in internal development, it was a period of relentless travel when he "lived on planes," once taking 30 flights in three months. The trigger to slow down came from home. "I came home once and my daughter said to me, 'Why are you here?'" So in 2010 he moved to the UK, first as head of HR for Alpha International, the Christian charity behind the Alpha course, then joining Langley House Trust, which helps people with convictions transform their lives. Further roles followed - director of HR and volunteers for Place2Be, co-founder and CEO of Cedar Consulting International, and board seats at City Gateway and International Health Partners.

Then, in 2016 - as Britain voted to leave the EU and Donald Trump was first elected US President - he joined real estate business MAPP as Head of People and Talent. It was never meant to last; like all the best things, it began as a pit stop. "It was a six-week assignment which turned into a decade!" he laughs. Ten years on, he leads the function as executive director. "It's double the length of time I've worked anywhere else." When he began there were 160 people; today there are 670.

Moving the needle

Greathead is wary of the language of one-off fixes. "It's not about being able to say we've done 'an initiative'. It's about how we keep moving the needle, iteratively, in a changing world. What you start with and what you end up with are often very different - depending on a global economic crisis, Covid or AI."

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As an employee ownership trust (EOT), MAPP is a people-driven business at its core and he joined at a good moment. "One of the strategic objectives was to make MAPP a great place to work. People worked really hard but also had lots of fun. There was camaraderie and high engagement scores but the question was how best to take it to the next level." That became his job.

"Our engagement scores went from the high 60s to the high 80s and early 90s," he says.

How did they do it? "We started with the premise that happy people work harder. No single initiative makes people enjoy what they do - it's many things, small contributions: snacks in the office, salted popcorn, M&Ms, all sorts of treats, but also meeting people where they are in life, from salary exchange, nursery benefits to a meal voucher after having a family member in hospital. Some might say that's just noise, but it tells a story. One of the things we work really hard on is making sure no one feels like they're a number."