‘Working the Time’

doi:10.1017/9781009297288.010

9 - ‘Working the Time’

Time Self-Management Practices of Remote Workers

from Part III - New Ways of Organizing Work, Digitality and the Politics of Time

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 June 2023

Claire Estagnasié

Edited by

François-Xavier de Vaujany ,

Robin Holt and

Albane Grandazzi

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François-Xavier de Vaujany: Affiliation:
Universite Paris Dauphine-PSL
Robin Holt: Affiliation:
Copenhagen Business School
Albane Grandazzi: Affiliation:
Grenoble Ecole de Management

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Summary

The large-scale implementation of remote work appears as a fundamental shift into the traditional understanding of the relationship between time and work. Drawing on sociomateriality literature and more especially on the concept of temporal structuring, this chapter suggests that remote workers ‘work the time’ by different practices, to (re)create adequate temporalities to work. The analysis results from an exploratory qualitative study conducted between May 2020 and April 2021 in Montreal with 17 remote workers who were already working remotely before the Covid-19 pandemic. It gives an overview of the temporal practices of remote workers, who are mainly blocking time (i), navigating between temporalities (ii) ritualizing them (iii) or an interwoven of all of them to try to create time to work (and thus, for non-work as well). It appears that remote workers work the time to be flexible. However, they still do it in the clock time of organizational life. They also experiment with temporal tensions, which leads them to exercise a fourth practice that is indispensable to the other three, that of labeling times.

Keywords

Time self-management practices remote work sociomateriality

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: Organization as Time
Technology, Power and Politics
, pp. 185 - 210

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009297288.010 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2023

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