Moving to New Ways of Working Across the Pandemic Crisis: Managerial Challenges and Human-Technology Configurations

New working modalities such as smart working have removed the constraints of time and place and turned the traditional concept of work into a highly flexible phenomenon that can now be conducted anywhere through digital tools and an array of new technologies. After having experienced it in an unprecedented rate worldwide, following the Covid-19 pandemic, many companies have vowed that these new work configurations are here to stay and will become increasingly common. Organizations will continue to embrace them as a way of improving employees’ satisfaction and revolutionizing operations. Despite the benefits often associated with the new ways of work, evidence shows that many companies have struggled to cope with it. In light of the complexity of such adoption, we investigate through a longitudinal case study of a multinational company that embraced such initiatives before, during and after the pandemic, the main challenges and difficulties voiced by both managers and employees. The analysis of the findings shows that the main issues relate to excessive supervision, longer working hours, change of team dynamics and insufficient use of technologies—all of which call for a change in organizational culture and approach towards new ways of working that goes beyond changes in individual tasks and work practices.