Employee Well-Being under the Work-from-Home Culture: Toward an Alternative Framework

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has enforced a global shift in organizational culture and workspace management. It has created a scenario where most of the “office-work” has shifted “home” and in doing so, has provided a unique opportunity to study two concurrent processes—the large-scale transformation of the “home” into a “workspace” and the alterations resulting from the same in the domains of employee and resource management. The present chapter primarily emphasizes the various aspects of the works of social philosophers, Giles Deleuze, and Félix Guaftari, on automation and its impact on the life of employees, along with Robert Tiqqun’s theory of The Cybernetic Hypothesis. The various facets and derivatives of Deleuze and Guaftari’s theories, which are taken as conceptual tools in the chapter include their own concept of the minor and its relationship with “confined spaces,” Thomas Nail and Manuel DeLanda’s theory on assemblages, and Nicholas Thoburn’s analysis of machinic relations. By interrelating these conceptual formulations, in the context of the contemporary widespread culture of “work from home,” the chapter explains the processes through which companies have been engaging in employee management and resource utilization during the pandemic, and its potential impacts in a post-Covid world. By using the above-stated conceptual tools along with qualitative data collected through in-depth interviews conducted in Bengaluru, India, the chapter analyzes the contemporary relationship between labor, capital, machines, and employee well-being (EWB). The chapter particularly emphasizes the importance of mental well-being in employee management and the ways in which, it can be incorporated within the mechanisms put in place for managing remote work. By maintaining a value-neutral approach, the present work also focuses on the usage of human—machine networks and their role in making global capital function, along with their possible utilization to ensure higher job satisfaction and well-being of the employees.