Keeping track of the growing list of C-suite positions can be challenging for casual observers. Even the most-well-known CEO title is just over 100 years old. The first chief financial officers (CFOs) didn’t emerge until the 1960s. Chief human resource officers (CHROs) are even more recent, not coming onto the scene until the mid-1980s.
A Newly Emerging C-Level Role
Successful, multi-billion-dollar corporations don’t create highly paid C-level roles on a whim. As roles like CFO, CMO, CAO, CLO and others emerge, they are in response to compelling business needs that require high-level authority and focused attention.
It’s perhaps not surprising in the post-COVID era, then, to see the emergence of yet another C-level role: the chief remote officer.
“In the new world of work, business needs have shifted,” writes Alex Christian in an article for BBC Worklife. “One of the most pertinent issues has been how to establish best practices around remote set-ups. Many companies have struggled: virtual working has been a moving target with no precedent; organizations, in some cases, have implemented hybrid or work-from-anywhere policies without formal processes in place.”
But, he adds, while some companies have taken an ad-hoc approach, others are being more proactive. They are creating senior-level positions whose job is to focus specifically on how to make remote work work. “These chief remote officers may have different titles, but they are each tasked with addressing the complex issues that arise from new ways of working and future-proofing businesses’ post-pandemic operating models,” Christian says.
Finding Order Amid Chaos
It’s understandable why organizations would want to designate a CRO in today’s business climate. In just a couple of years, the entire office paradigm has been completely upended for millions of workers.
Finding order amid that chaos and finding ways to derive strategic advantages in how a company manages its remote work policies are where companies are starting to put increasing energies in the aftermath of COVID. It will be interesting to see if and how this nascent C-suite role develops and what its ultimate purview will be once the dust settles on the historic transition to widespread remote work.
Lin Grensing-Pophal is a Contributing Editor at HR Daily Advisor.