Head of remote - the new way to lead remote teams
Head of remote.
The title is everywhere if someone follows the journey of the future of work agenda.
Yet, the title doesn't exist on LinkedIn. You can only manually set it on your CV or your job search. I'm 100% sure that the title Change Magician exists, but not the Head of Remote.
The title was first popularized by Darren Murph, who serves as a head of remote at Gitlab.
Gitlab was also one of the first companies to publish a handbook on remote-first operations. It is a gold mine for those who are interested.
But what is the head of remote? And why should you care?
First, the what.
The head of remote is a managerial leadership role for companies that have or want to have remote-first operational principles. Therefore, the head of remote is somewhere between a people-first leader - or HR, but I'm not too fond of the word HR as it classifies humans as resources - and a business operations manager.
So it is people, partially operations, with an exclusive focus on remote-first setup.
Since the responsibility is super new, people in that position are still either figuring it out or applying their focus and skills to the company they are working for. And, of course, different companies and different needs. Some head of remotes leans more towards operations, while others are more people-focused.
But all of them have remote-first as the single most important focus.
Now, the why.
Pre-pandemic, companies were either fully remote or on-site. If they were on-site, they might have remotely outsourced team members, but in general, we had these two brackets.
During the pandemic, on-site companies were forced to work remotely due to restrictions and closures. But, unfortunately, most of them didn't know how to do it.
It was a crisis. Not an opportunity.
Post-pandemic, however, companies realized that they needed to make a decision.
Either go back to the office entirely or do something else. The drive was harsh for the employees who loved the lack of commute and the more time they spent with their family - or with their work since productivity peaked during remote work.
The something else part, though, was unknown territory. What worked for early remote-only companies could only be applied partially to traditional non-startup companies.
The remote-first movement began a year ago when remote experts started to help companies to install policies in their operations that allowed their employees to work from anywhere.
If they wanted to go back to the office time-to-time, no problem. If they wanted to work from home, no problem - the same rules apply.
But since this is still an uncharted land, there is a need for someone dedicated to managing this operation. That is why we need a dedicated head of remote - they maintain that all processes can work without the restriction of location.
What is the future of head of remote?
Well, we are still determining the future of remote work.
I do believe that the people-focused part will evolve further but will be managed by a head of people or people experience managers.
In the operations part, however, I think there will be a great need for managers who can design, create, implement, and maintain remote-first company policies.
It is a new skill set for consultants to sell. And it will be a skill set that companies need to hire.
I had the chance to interview three people on the Leadership Anywhere show recently. All of them worked or still working as a head of remote for truly innovative companies.
It was super interesting to hear how they defined their own roles and responsibilities within this space.
Valentina Thörner, a remote leadership consultant and the current head of remote of Klaus App, leaned towards the fine balance between a people-first approach and operational excellence. She provided insights on how companies should build policies and invest in people-first activities.
Tyler Sellhorn, former head of remote of Polygon Labs, one of the most prominent web3 companies, currently serves as a business operations manager. He approached the role of head of remote from the operations side, giving out insanely helpful tips on processes: how we work ultimately defines a company's culture.
And Mitko Karshovski, the host of That Remote Life show, provides a fractional head of remote service. He approached the topic from the evolution of remote work, how we went from solopreneur nomads to full-time remote employment. And how this journey inherently required a dedicated person who holds everything together, the head of remote.
This is a journey, and we figure things out on the road. But that's OK; finally, there are no clear answers to our problems.
Stay onboard,
Peter
PS: I'll share some exciting learnings from my Techstars mentorship program next week. It was a challenging but super exciting experience - I mentored 12 extraordinarily talented and passionate web3 startups participating in the Techstars accelerator program in Boston. So much to share on how to grow from an idea to an actual business.
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