Coworking with Valentina Thörner

On Wednesdays, we schedule our weekly 1:1 with HR Brew’s readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

Valentina Thörner is the head of remote and support quality at Klaus, a customer-service technology company, where she’s worked since 2019. As a member of the executive team, she’s responsible for handling all aspects of remote work for Klaus’s more than 50 employees in 13 countries. Thörner spends her time helping employees navigate the challenges, opportunities, and cybersecurity considerations that can arise from working remotely.

How would you describe your specific job to someone who doesn’t work in HR? I work super closely with HR, translating HR policies into remote realities and keeping touch of the pulse of remote happiness within the team.

What’s the best change you’ve made at a place you’ve worked? Our remote onboarding process and the remote buddy system we have in place are top-notch—to help people transition from “traditional” jobs to our async and output-focused culture.

What’s the biggest misconception people might have about your job? “Head of remote” is something that only works for huge companies. Instead, the sooner you start setting the stage for remote and hybrid excellence, the easier you can scale it.

What’s the most fulfilling aspect of your job? Talking to our remote employees and hearing how they feel absolutely and inherently part of the team.

What trend in HR are you most optimistic about? With companies being able to choose their policies around remote, hybrid, or in-office arrangements, HR can finally be involved in strategic planning around employee engagement instead of only reacting to the pandemic.

What trend in HR are you least optimistic about? HR as simply being the enforcer of bringing people back into the office no matter what, that makes me sad.

Want to be featured in an upcoming edition of Coworking? Click here to introduce yourself.