“Chief Remote Work Officer” is confounding, beyond the trend to name a new C-something for every new situation.
Remote work today is about how people are enabled across the business to do their best work in remote/virtual settings. That should be the province of HR, the business-wide “people” function and guiding force in workforce changes.
I can see hiring (or contracting) project managers and knowledge specialists to accelerate HR efforts. But a separate C-level officer? It only serves to gut HR’s business role and value. It will also add confusion to who does what.
Also, hiring someone from the outside, new to the business culture, to shape the business culture for the future is playing with fire. You may get culture change, but maybe not the change you had hoped and in line with your business legacy, values, and vision.
If your response is something like “HR can’t innovate” or “HR can’t handle major workforce changes” or whatever … doesn’t that indicate a problem with HR even without the remote work issue?
We are in an era of relentless change. If current HR leaders can’t help the business continually adapt, then work on THAT problem. Don’t add another C-level leader to treat the symptom.
By Mike Russell, from a LinkedIn post commenting on this article: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-chief-remote-working-officers-are-now-navigating-organizations-into-a/
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