Building a Better-Work Life Balance

Clemi Hardie is head of pencils at Noodle Live, a company she founded at 25. At the time, the title of CEO didn’t feel quite right, so she decided to go with something a little different. The response was positive, so the title has stuck.

Before starting Noodle Live, Hardie worked in online marketing, specifically SEO and the first wave of social media. Noodle Live started after Clemi discovered an activation by Coca-Cola which used RFID technology. For Hardie, using RFID is a much more human experience than scanning QR codes. RFID taps into the childlike sense of joy in people in a way that scanning a QR code doesn’t. 

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RFID technology is all about in-person events; therefore, the pandemic threw numerous challenges at Noodle Live. The company became fully remote at the end of 2019, before the Covid pandemic hit. When the industry shutdown, the only concern was keeping staff. With the support of the UK Government’s furlough schemes she made sure her staff could continue support themselves.

With staff financial well-being secured, the company was able to make decisions that aligned with its core values and principles. While there was pressure to develop a virtual event platform, the market was becoming increasingly crowded, and pivoting to virtual was not in its long-term vision. Ultimately Noodle Live decided to focus on reinventing its core product and processes. The development’s guiding principle was to streamline the product on both the front and back end. 

During the reinvention process, Hardie became more aware of how burnt out her whole team had been. She also realized the meetings industry needed to do better at supporting a better work-life balance for staff. Today, Noodle Live operates ona 4-day work week and uses a remote team who bid for projects that align with their schedules. These initiatives support a better work/life balance for staff, making the company more attractive to employees and boosting retention.

Hardie had also struggled with always being busy and feeling obliged to log a certain number of working hours weekly. She has since changed her approach and now sets different expectations for herself and her team.

As we note in this discussion, this episode is both inspirational and personal, which many people can relate to on some level, and we hope you find some valuable takeaways.

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