Do Organizations need a Head of Remote Work?

Following the Covid-19 pandemic emergency, the number of remote workers has increased exponentially with a large proportion of the workforce operating from home in April 2020. After the first lockdown period, the percentage of remote workers decreased radically, and was estimated to be around 35–40% in 2021. However, doubts and criticisms have arisen as to whether organizations are carrying out remote working practices effectively. Adopting the socio-technical system (STS) perspective, this paper aims to investigate the specific characteristics of remote working in order to identify the major factors which might affect the adoption of agile working, rather than simply remote working, in organizations. A causal-effect path will be depicted to explain the evolution of remote working adoption in organizations, and the need for task and job redesign, business processes reingeneering, innovative eHRM policies, cultural changes, and new organizational roles. The paper describes the new organizational roles, tasks and competences aimed at enabling an effective adoption of agile working in organization.