'The war for talent is actually over, and talent has won'
“It's like you're running two companies, yet you want to get to the same place.”
So says Melissa Smith, founder of the Association of Virtual Assistants, in looking at the massive move to hybrid workplaces brought about by the pandemic.
That’s why a “head of remote” or “chief remote work officer” makes a lot of sense these days, with economies reopening and restrictions lifting. Many employers are realizing they may not have an equitable experience for both remote employees and in-person employees, she says.
“It is harder… and it's not harder because it's not doable, but you're literally coming up with two strategies,” says Smith. “You're not going to get there by accident, and you're not going to get there if someone is not devoted to making sure your team arrives there.
“It's different from having someone just in HR writing policy and procedure, or having someone say, ‘Well, what about our remote people? Or what about our in-person people?’ It's really about someone who's dedicated to understanding that, because someone has to stay ahead of it.”
While companies have dabbled in the hybrid approach, most employees have never worked in a hybrid environment, so it's going to be an evolution, says Evangeline Berube, VP of strategic accounts at Robert Half in Edmonton.
“To be honest, I don't think some organizations have even contemplated it yet because they're still trying to figure out what are they going to do? Are they going to go hybrid? Or are they going to go full back in the office?” she says.
“But as things continue, I certainly see this coming about because there's a lot of complexities around it.”
Cross-functional areas of focus
And some of that complexity is very cross-functional, so it affects every area of the organization, says Berube.
“That's why it'll be good to have someone who can focus on this, specifically, and work with all those current cross-functional areas to ensure that the employee experience is managed really, really well so it doesn't impact the business. Because if you have people trying to do it off the side of their desk, it's going to be a lot less effective, and not because those people don't care and they don't want it to be good, it's just we only have so much bandwidth.”
This role would touch on several areas related to HR, starting with talent acquisition, she says. That means attracting people to a hybrid setup by assuring them it’s a place where they can succeed “because people say, ‘Well, how do I advance in an organization when I see my manager once a quarter? How does that work?’”
The head of remote would also be involved on the communication side to make sure people are connected effectively with any developments and feel like they're part of the team, says Berube. “All of those sorts of strategies would have to be reviewed continuously to make sure that they're working.”
In addition, any sort of onboarding and training of new people would need to be looked at as well, she says.
“You'd have to ensure that you're able to integrate people into the team quickly and effectively so they felt engaged, productive, they felt like they were part of the team.”
There’s also the compensation side, in terms of how to pay people who work remotely, such as a different province, along with maintaining company culture, says Berube.
Read more: Organizations should keep any eye out for a “shadow culture” that often doesn’t present itself to senior leaders
There would also be a lot involved with the technology piece, in ensuring the right tools are in place and used properly. The head of remote would want to make sure, for example, the company is not bombarding people in different time zones with messages at inappropriate times, she says.
“Cybersecurity is huge now with all the remote work. So [it’s about] making sure that the company's mitigated all its risks from that perspective.”
The scheduling challenges could be helped by artificial intelligence (AI) which can “take a bit of the drudgery out of it and help workers experience a little less friction during their work lives,” says Ram Srinivasan, managing director at real estate agency JLL Consulting in Toronto.
“Part of your workforce might be remote, part might be in the office, part might be working from home, part might be in the metaverse — how do you bring all of these workers together dynamically over time, and manage not just your workforce but also your workplace and technology such that the employee doesn't feel defeated? That's going to be super critical.”
Focus on employee experience
All of this is tied into the employee experience, says Berube.
“Right now, particularly given we're in such a candidate-short market and retention is so critical, and attracting top talent is so critical, it really highlights the importance of ensuring that your employees are engaged, they're happy, they're productive. And in order to do that, you have to make sure that that employee experience is really great.”
Read more: A remote work officer would oversee the effective mix of different work modes, says one academic.
In the last two years, there’s been a big shift towards a better employee experience, says Srinivasan.
“If you think about the employer-employee dynamics and the war for talent, one of the things that we've been saying is we've entered this golden era of the workforce. And that's the thing is the war for talent is actually over and talent has won.”
Experience management has become critical, along with the rise of remote work options and flexibility, but this has typically fallen on the shoulders of real estate teams, along with technology and HR, he says.
“Whereas if you think about it from the employee perspective, the employee has one experience, they don't experience these things separately. So you almost need a greater focus going forward… so who manages it within the organization is becoming more and more critical.”
That leads to a specialized position associated with remote work, says Srinivasan.
“Chief remote officers, heads of employee experience, integrated experience management, heads of future of work — all of these are becoming important going forward.”
In delving into the HR trends for 2022, not surprisingly, much of the focus is on the employee experience.
The right person for the role
It’s about having someone who really anticipate the company's needs, much like the CEO of any company, say Smith, who is also CEO of The PVA (Personal Virtual Assistant) and based in Athens, Ga.
“Their first job is to hire the right people. And the second is to future proof the business,” she says.
“How can we future proof our employee experience to make sure that we're addressing questions before they happen? What are other companies doing? What have other companies done? What has not been successful? What do we want to try here that no one else is doing?”
All those things make employees feel like someone cares about them because you don’t want an us-versus-them mentality, says Smith.
For example, if someone is remote but others are in the office, why is everyone expected to do a Zoom call?
“That may be equitable but maybe that's not the right thing to do for your company; maybe your remote employees don't feel left out because they can still see everyone and they know everyone's there and they don't feel left out.”
The number one concern among executives with respect to flexible work today is the potential for inequities to develop between remote and in-office employees, according to a report.
It’s also important to have head of remote in the C-suite because they would need to have executive buy in, and they will be working across different cross-functional areas, says Berube.
“If they're farther down the rung of the ladder, they may not have the ability to make the big decisions and have that strategic mindset and that innovative mindset to drive change in the organization,” she says. “It is going to require somebody who's pretty innovative, broad minded… highly adaptable.”
It’s not like this person can look at a playbook from before, says Berube.
“I mean, they're creating the playbook. And so you need people who are comfortable with that ambiguity. And who are able to really look at the environment and start pivoting wherever necessary, because this is going to continue to change.”
