Hanna Hasl-Kelchner, MBA, JD, is a multi-award-winning author who takes an unflinching look at business leadership by speaking truth to power. Her strength as an author, speaker, and consultant rests in the unique perspective she brings to the conversation: growing up in an entrepreneurial family, running a business before age 30, and blending it with decades practicing business law.These experiences enable her to successfully bridge the social, psychological, legal, and practical aspects of workplace dynamics, allowing her to be a trusted advisor to influential decision makers, ranging from start-ups to the S&P 500, Big Tobacco, and the White House, as well as serving on the faculty at two top-ranked MBA programs.
A sought-after speaker and media source, Hanna has been featured by international media outlets including ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, Moving America Forward with William Shatner and more. She hosts the acclaimed podcast, Business Confidential Now and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Business Ethics Education. Her recognitions include the SCORE Platinum Leadership Award and ACQ Global’s Leadership Development Advisory of the Year.
This one-on-one interview shares Hanna’s background and experience writing Seeking Fairness at Work: Cracking the New Code of Greater Employee Engagement, Retention & Satisfaction.
Tell us about Seeking Fairness at Work.
Seeking Fairness at Work challenges employer “truths” by examining the five most common workplace norms that betray fairness, leaving employees feeling dispirited, disengaged, and headed for the door.
Using evidence-based science, academic research, interviews, and real-life stories, the book merges organizational psychology with the practical aspects of workplace dynamics to offer an actionable framework filled with practical tips to empower more employee engagement and retention, including chapters on how to:
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Rebuild Trust with More Self-Awareness
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Improve Relationship Chemistry with More Empathy
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Make Genuine Accountability a Cornerstone
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Maintain a Cultural Safety Net
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Mend the Structural Safety Net
The book is ideal for executives, managers, and entrepreneurs who want to raise their employees’ game instead of their defenses; human resource professionals, consultants, and employment attorneys who advise them; and employees wanting a reality check of their own workplace experiences.
What inspired you to write Seeking Fairness at Work?
Old school management isn’t meeting new school needs. The data is alarming. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report, employee engagement is hovering in the low 20% range, meaning that nearly 80% of employees are disengaged to one degree or another. Their most recent report states global engagement rates have hit a five year low of 21%, costing the world economy $438 billion. When we were in school, getting a 21% score on a test was a failing grade.
Traditional command-and-control style management tends to view employees as transactions rather than as people, managing them with positional power with an emphasis on bottom-line metrics, rather than people-focused, relationship building strategies. Studies consistently show employees don’t leave companies, they leave managers. Every resignation is, in essence, a management performance review. Management can and must do better.
This book is my call to action. I want employees to know their desire for fairness is valid and long overdue. For executives, managers, and entrepreneurs reading this book, my hope is they understand how honoring the often-overlooked social contract at work can transform morale, retention, and performance in meaningful, measurable ways that translate to the bottom line.
How did you feel when you found out you received a Book Excellence Award?
Having Seeking Fairness at Work recognized as a Book Excellence Award Winner is a tremendous honor. It took five years of research and writing to produce this book, and this recognition affirms its vital contribution to the conversation. The award is not only a testament to the book’s quality but also amplifies its ability to reach and resonate with readers worldwide.
How did your background and experience influence your writing?
As a business strategist and attorney, I’ve spent years listening to frustrated employees share their stories of helplessness and anger. These conversations often revealed a disturbing pattern: organizations’ willful blindness to management behavior that torched their dignity, confidence, and psychological safety.
For example, when an employee from a large manufacturing company raised a serious concern with the head of HR in regards to the behavior of a senior vice president, they were essentially shooed away. “It’s worse in other departments,” they were told. In desperation, they consulted a lawyer.
This experience, like so many others, is a microcosm of the flawed leadership behaviors I’ve observed; behaviors that don’t just strain relationships but undermine trust and breed low employee engagement and costly turn over. While not all of these instances led to lawsuits, many could have. These encounters fueled my passion for writing Seeking Fairness at Work, aiming to shed light on these issues and inspire meaningful change in leadership practices.
What is one message you would like readers to remember?
Highly productive teams collaborate.Real collaboration requires psychological safety, to say what you think without fear of retaliation or disrespect.
Psychological safety requires trust.Trust requires fairness: acting in good faith and with fair dealing.What this means for management is that fairness isn’t about charity. It’s smart business.
Purchasing the Book
Seeking Fairness at Work: Cracking the New Code of Greater Employee Engagement, Retention & Satisfaction has received positive reviews from well-known literary organizations, authors, and reviewers around the world. Clarion Foreword Reviews writes, “Pithy and persuasive, Seeking Fairness at Work helps to make contemporary workplace issues feel tangible and easier to address,” while BookLife Reviews compares the book to Kim Scott’s Radical Respect and Kim Dabbs’s You Belong Here.
The book is available for sale on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Readers are encouraged to purchase their copy today: https://www.amazon.com/Seeking-Fairness-Work-Engagement-Satisfaction-ebook/dp/B0D1GXVKP1
To connect with Hanna and learn more about her transformative work in business, leadership, and life, visit: https://seekingfairnessatwork.com. You can also find her on Instagram, LinkedIn and X.
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