Managers Working at Home: Critical Developments Before, During and After Coronavirus

Abstract

Studies of the employment effects of coronavirus have regularly discussed managers undertaking an idiosyncratic practice – working at home rather than in the office. While such inquiries have typically stressed the unique and mandated political present of managerial homeworking, we note the practice also has a diverse economic, social and technical past – one reflected, among other things, by a mixture of futurology predictions, corporate programmes, and voluntary/unpaid work. Adopting a labour process perspective, and presenting findings from a three-phase empirical analysis, we document how a range of explicit (e.g. digital communications; strategic restructuring; surveillance technologies) and implicit (e.g. cultural commitment; responsible autonomy; work-life balance) factors have effected managers undertaking at least part of their work at home in recent decades. Finally, looking to the post-pandemic future, we discuss whether the practice of managers working at home will likely be ‘extended’, ‘ended’ or ‘hybridised’ by employers in the coming years.