For organizations with flexible work models — from the hybrid to the fully distributed — the head
of remote role is growing in popularity. The people in this role are responsible for managing the
virtual employee experience and implementing best practices for remote work throughout their
organizations. Not all companies need a head of remote, but all companies do need someone to
advocate for the wellbeing of their remote workforces.
Finding a Head of Remote & 5 OKRs for the Role
To review, your company is ready to fill a Head of Remote role if you’ve determined at least one of
the following:
❏ You are out of the construction phase and into maintenance mode with your remote work
model.
❏ The minority of your workforce (<50%) is remote and needs representation in operations
and decision-making (Internal Advocate Profile).
❏ You would benefit from dedicated efforts to tell the story of remote work at your company
to attract talent and support your positioning in remote thought leadership, marketing, and
recruiting (External Advocate Profile).
How does the Head of Remote drive company
growth?
Working remotely does not just mean working from home. In fact, working remotely can
mean working from anywhere, any time. For companies with remote workforce’s, the
natural question that follows “Can we hire remotely?” is “What should we do now that we
can hire anyone we want?”
The Head of Remote is not just responsible for creating a good experience for people working from
home in one country. Instead, the Head of Remote must account for all the permutations of remote
work, which can include people in multiple time zones and people with different lifestyles. For
example, the needs of a remote worker operating from her home in Germany will be dramatically
different from the needs of a worker traveling from one country to another as a digital nomad.
