Insights and Inspiration – Job Shadowing at Tandemploy

Livia Freudl is Vice President of HR and Global HR Business Partner Control Products at Siemens. She also works on International Project Management, Talent Management, Team Leadership, Coaching, Change Management, Diversity and Inclusion. Since she’s interested in New Work, Livia job shadowed for two days with Tandemploy in mid-December. We talked with her about her motivations and definition of New Work.

What were your motivations to do job shadowing at Tandemploy?

When we went on a “learning journey” to Berlin a few weeks ago and visited startups, I thought to myself, “Yeah, on slides, everything always make sense, and intellectually I understand how a startup works and what’s different about it compared with my corporate world,” but to experience something is different. I then began to think about who I would like to go to; Tandemploy came to mind first because I loved the product. I felt that, during our visit, the people at Tandemploy were “true believers” – people who live and breathe what they do and attach great importance to cooperation.

What are you hoping for?

I hope to get insights that I can then incorporate into my own work routine and get inspiration that I can bring to my company. My focus is definitely on topics such as collaboration, decision-making; more the “how” and less the “what.”

What does sustainable work look like to you? And how important are and will be collaboration and networking, in your opinion?

Sustainable work will do people more justice than the world of work does today. My feeling is that in many places, in a world where conditions have changed dramatically, we are still trying to be successful with old ways of working. At the moment, this often happens at the expense of the employees and, in the end, at the expense of our society and economy. Making more of the same in less time is neither healthy for humans nor does it increase our capacity for innovation. The world has changed a lot, information is becoming available faster, it’s making the world faster, and global networking is fueling it even more. Networking is therefore a key factor for success – partially so you can keep pace, but also because it’s no longer possible for knowledge to remain tucked away in one place. I am convinced that collaboration will be the difference-maker. Companies that understand this will be faster than others and produce better results. The years during which we had time to play political games and satisfy individuals’ egos are over in my view. Not all companies will feel this immediately, but certainly in the long term.

What is your definition of New Work?

For me, New Work is a world of work that adapts to the conditions of our world and to people and their needs. New Work is flexible, enabling organizations to do more in less time and with less resource use.

Thank you for your visit and the interview!