Life-life Balance Over Work-life Balance with Hannah Kreiswirth 

 

Episode 222: Show Notes

 

In most companies, the role of the chief operating officer is not directly concerned with employee wellbeing, satisfaction, or recruitment. This is not the case with AREA 17, where COO Hannah Kreiswirth makes it her priority to ensure that the employees are happy. Join us to find out why Hannah does this (people make the company), and how she ensures employee contentment.  Hannah explains the difference between jobs that are just jobs and those that are someone's life, as well as why life-life balance is a better concept than work-life balance. We touch on the debate around remote work and returning to the office, and what companies can do to create a space that empowers employees to be the person they want to share. For all this and so much more, tune in today!

 

Key Points From This Episode:

 

• Welcome to Hannah Kreiswirth, COO and partner at AREA 17. 
• How Hannah moved from the film industry to publishing and finally to AREA 17. 
• Finding the company for you: identifying those that care about the same things you do. 
• Using storytelling in the interview process, from both a recruiter and a candidate's point of view. 
• The pros and cons of "Some jobs are jobs" and "Some jobs are life". 
• Why the distinction between "Life-life balance" and "work-life balance" is an important one to make. 
• Why flexibility is key in creating a work environment that benefits all parties. 
• What companies can do to empower people to design a work-life that is best for them.
• AREA 17's values, and what Hannah understands by them. 
• Why Hannah, as a COO, has focused on people. 
• The debate around remote work vs office work, and balancing the two. 
• How Hannah feels about the virtual work experience. 

 

Tweetables:

 

"I found myself engaged in the Internet and realizing that that is a space where storytelling and sort of social history is happening as we speak." — @hannahteak [0:02:18]

 

"There's that trope of 'work to live' versus 'live to work'. My view is that both of those are a bit wrong because work is inherently a big part of all of our lives unless you're so privileged to not need to do that at all." — @hannahteak [0:08:09]

 

"It never occurred to me that having a focus on people wouldn't fundamentally be what a COO's job is. Because at the end of the day, to me, our business doesn't exist without our people and that's something that has been central to who we are from day one and 19 years later." — @hannahteak [0:21:33]

 

Links Mentioned in Today's Episode:

 

Hannah Kreiswirth on LinkedIn

AREA 17

Talk Talent to Me

Hired