The new normals of work: a framework for understanding responses to disruptions created by new futures of work

The COVID-19 pandemic led to governments advising citizens to engage in ’social distancing’ measures. These measures included working from home rather than in an office. As a result, many people had to rapidly develop new working strategies. As we look to a new future of work, with many workplaces examining long-term remote or hybrid working set-ups, it is important to understand how people developed remote working strategies and the contextual factors that precluded workers from maximising the potential of technology. Using a two-stage approach including a qualitative survey and a series of in-depth interviews, we investigated the challenges people experienced in creating effective workspaces, getting work done and connecting with others that surfaced during the COVID-19 crisis. We adapt a framework used in healthcare to the work context to make sense of how people cope with this disruption to find a new normal. From this, we identify instances of how people adapt to the new normal, where they avoid adaption and where they anticipate future changes. This gives us an understanding of how people adapt to the changing nature of work in response to the pandemic and offers a lens that may help to understand other future disruptions to work.