Newest job is head of remote work
As remote work evolves from a stopgap measure during the pandemic into an ongoing way of life, a new job is emerging in corporate ranks: director of remote work.
Tech giants such as GitLab, Facebook, Twitter and Quora are among the first and best-known companies to carve out a new position dedicated to remote work, tapping executives with backgrounds in finance, law, land acquisition and consulting.
But it’s happening informally inside many companies.
“I report to a CEO who is asking me what other companies are doing, what benchmarking is out there,” said Becky Lauseng, the human resources director at the Minneapolis-based farm management software company, Conservis.
Lauseng, who also is president of the Twin Cities Society for Human Resource Management, sees many of her HR peers taking on expanded roles.
They are working with the real estate department to consider downsizing office space, and discussing tax implications of hiring work-from-anywhere employees in multiple states or countries. They’re spending more time with the IT department to ensure workers have tools they need to work from home. And they continue to serve as the bridge between employees and management.
“We’ve always been viewed as a support function,” Lauseng said. “I think the pandemic has given HR professionals increased job security. They have a more strategic role in how this is going to play out.”
Advocates of having a person or team dedicated to remote work say it can help businesses make the transition into a fully remote or hybrid workforce in a strategic, methodical way, without sacrificing culture.
“We need to apply some different practices to the remote world,” said Harvard Business School professor Raj Choudhury, whose research focuses on the future of work.
The role is especially important for companies where having a remote workforce is a big departure from the old ways of working, he says.
Theresa Glomb, a University of Minnesota business professor and organizational psychologist, was originally skeptical of the need for a new role.
But Glomb noted that managing a hybrid or allremote workforce brings up distinct yet overlapping challenges across every corner of the company. There’s value, she said, in having a leader who can see how all the pieces work together.