New research by business data provider Company Check has found that happier people are less likely to leave and set up their own businesses in the UK than their less happy counterparts.
The data, which cross-checked firms’ financial data from Company Check with happiness ratings from Rightmove’s recent ‘Happy at Home’ report, found that areas where reported happiness was higher also had the fewest instances of new business incorporation in 2014.
Barking and Dagenham, the least happy place in the UK according to Rightmove’s study of 25,000 people, saw 21,400 new companies incorporated last year, the second highest of all the 130 towns and cities surveyed.
The UK’s happiest place, Harrogate, ranked 76th and was one of 29 of the top 50 places for happiness to rank in the bottom half for new business numbers.
Alastair Campbell, founder of Company Check, said: “Entrepreneurship is an essential part of the UK’s economy, with well over 5 million new businesses filing accounts with Companies House in 2014 alone.
“The correlation between happiness and entrepreneurship highlighted in this research cannot explain cause and effect, but it wouldn’t surprise me if entrepreneurship was, at least in part, a result of dissatisfaction.
“The data suggests that the less happy someone is, the more likely they are to set up their own business. I started my first company because I didn’t agree with how other people ran their businesses and wanted to do it my way.
“Part of the role of any business leader is make sure their employees are happy. By investing in initiatives which improve happiness levels and give employees a sense of career progression, companies stand a better chance of retaining their people.”
The report from Company Check aggregates a number of business metrics alongside the happiness ratings from Rightmove’s research, including average wages and business dissolutions A full breakdown of rankings for each of the metrics can be found here.
ENDS
Company Check (http://companycheck.co.uk/) is the largest source of data on UK companies and attracts three million unique visitors each month who, between them, carry out more than 200 million searches each year for due diligence, checking up on customers and suppliers, researching competitors or tracking their own businesses.
By gathering company and director details from various sources including Companies House, the Registry Trust and local Gazettes, Company Check provides important insight to its users and regularly publishes reports on the state of UK business.
It is the only affordable way for small businesses and consumers to perform credit checks on other companies without a contract or the hard sell. More details and interviews are available on request – contact pr@companycheck.co.uk or call Rob Tomkinson on 07723602254/ 0115 242212)
