Director of Remote Organizational Effectiveness

Upwork ($UPWK) is the world’s work marketplace. We serve everyone from one-person startups to over 30% of the Fortune 100 with a powerful, trust-driven platform that enables companies and talent to work together in new ways that unlock their potential.  

Last year, more than $3.3 billion of work was done through Upwork by skilled professionals who are gaining more control by finding work they are passionate about and innovating their careers. 

We are seeking an experienced leader and subject matter expert in current and future trends of remote work, to join as our Director of Remote Org Effectiveness, Human Resources. Reporting to our VP of L&D and Organizational Well-being, you will define what it means to be the industry leader in operating a remote workforce, and lead the change required to get and keep us there.

You will directly drive Upwork’s success as a remote-first workplace through your business acumen and industry knowledge, change management capability, strategy design, and drive company-wide accountability to build a world-class remote employee experience at scale. You will utilize and continue to develop your high-growth company experience, distributed team leadership, and leverage broad and cohesive communication skills to drive Upwork’s business priorities. You will create high-impact programs to enable both our corporate team members as well as our hybrid workforce to do the very best work of their career and report on the ROI of those initiatives. You will design cadences of communications, co-create leadership principles, drive our remote work playbook evolution and adoption, and lead the HR efforts that bring the Upwork platform to life in, and outside of the company. As an action-oriented systems thinker, you will drive business results and employee engagement through remote workforce programs that keep us on the bleeding edge of innovation and performance.

• Developing programs and initiatives which demonstrate Upwork as the unequivocal leader in driving impact through hybrid remote teams.
• Design an effective communications strategy that makes an impact and coordinate messages and cadences across People Team communications and campaigns so there is “one source of truth” and one coordinated People Team comms calendar

• Develop strategic partnerships with the Executive Team, HR teams, and other internal client’s to identify and intervene on change management initiatives that foster organization learning and address corporate strategic goals and needs focused on our remote first organization. 

• Provide project management for organization-wide projects/initiatives as required, facilitating team efforts and helping to define project goals, timelines, resource requirements and planning to cope with conflict or stressor points in the plans. 
• Provide organization-wide assessments about organization and unit health and effectiveness so that change projects can be prioritized and brought to successful completion. Track the number of, and status of prioritized change projects. Help structure designs for, and implements organization change; makes recommendations to Leadership team

• Push forward key remote first business strategies through actionable People initiatives and spearhead ongoing organizational initiatives that enable and improve a high performance company culture as we grow and scale.
• Actively partner with and amplify Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts and ensure Upwork is an incredible place for anyone and everyone to belong and achieve.

• 7+ years experience in progressive HR roles with a focus on distributed / remote teams. 
• Strong communication and influencing skills; effective listener, ability to connect and influence actions and outcomes with employees at all levels in the organization.
• Track record of strong business partnership with leadership within a dynamic, fast paced environment, including a reputation as a passionate positive agitator.
• Examples of where you’ve already demonstrated our philosophy of HR Goes First, by leading prior teams through challenges and opportunities to pressure test your approach.
• History of innovation and creativity in approach to change management and deep evolution of approach within an organization. 
• Remote work thought leader and subject matter expert: you have in-depth knowledge of the opportunities and challenges presented by driving an exceptional team throughout 180 countries. 

• Deep analytical skills with the ability to identify or build core metrics and drive key insights and recommendations through data and trend work.
• Proven ability to design, track, prioritize and drive to success multiple concurrent projects with a strong operational background and mission centric emphasis.

At Upwork, you’ll shape talent solutions for how the world works today. We are a remote-first organization working together to create exciting remote work opportunities for a global community of professionals.  While we have physical offices in San Francisco and Chicago, currently we also support hiring of corporate full-time employees in 15 states in the United States. Please speak with a member of our recruitment team to determine whether you are located in a state in which we are hiring corporate full-time employees. 

Our vibrant culture is built on shared values and our mission to create economic opportunities so that people have better lives. We foster amazing teams, put our community first, and have a bias toward action. We encourage everyone to bring their whole selves to work and grow together through development opportunities, mentorship, and employee resource groups. Oh yeah, we’ve also got amazing benefits.

Check out our Life at Upwork page to learn more about the employee experience.   

Upwork is proudly committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse and inclusive workforce. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we never discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical condition), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.