Telework after confinement: Interrogating the spatiotemporalities of home-based work life

Abstract

During the pandemic, office workers were abruptly pushed into a home-based work life, as working from home became mandatory, full time, and digitally coordinated. The transition revealed an untapped potential of telework to reorganize daily life and facilitate resource-efficient adaptations. This study investigates the adjustments that took place, how daily life and mobility was remade in time and space, how change was experienced, and whether new preferences and habits were established. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 28 office workers, we examine whether and why the confined work-from-home pattern will have lasting influences on how and where people choose to live, work, relocate, and travel. Theoretically, we view the mandated working from home as a work-life shock event, causing a disruptive, novel, and critical experience of adaptation. We employ time geography to enhance a spatiotemporal understanding of shock events, i.e., how daily life and the local order of home are rearranged under new constraints. Our findings indicate a remarkable shift in the willingness to continue the home-based work life, essentially caused by valued experiences of heavily reduced travel time, a sense of always being ‘in place’, and a calmer pace of life. Felt spatial, digital, and emotional crowding at home challenge the new order, and residential relocation as a strategy to sustain a home-based work life is frequently mentioned. Although working from home is perceived as mostly efficient, the loss of informal social contact is driving a partial return to the office.