Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023;85(6):1317-1336.
doi: 10.1007/s10734-022-00892-y. Epub 2022 Jul 7.

'Living at work': COVID-19, remote-working and the spatio-relational reorganisation of professional services in UK universities

Richard Watermeyer  1 , Cathryn Knight  1 , Tom Crick  2 , Mar Borras  3
Affiliations

'Living at work': COVID-19, remote-working and the spatio-relational reorganisation of professional services in UK universities

Richard Watermeyer et al. High Educ (Dordr). 2023.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has been the source of large-scale disruption to the work practices of university staff, across the UK and globally. This article reports the experiences of n = 4731 professional services staff (PSS) working in UK universities and their experiences of pandemic-related work disruption. It specifically focuses on a transition to remote-working as a consequence of social restrictions and campus closures, presenting both quantitative and qualitative findings that speak to the various spatio-relational impacts of PSS working at distance from university campuses. These survey findings contribute to a new narrative of work organisation in higher education which addresses the potential of remote-working as a means for boundary crossing, social connectedness and trust relationships in universities in the immediate context and strongly anticipated post-pandemic future.

Keywords: COVID-19; Future of work; Professional services staff; Remote working; Spatio-relational impacts; Trust; Virtual connectedness.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interestThe authors declare no competing interests.

References

    1. Adisa TA, Ogbonnaya C, Adekoya OD. Remote-working and employee engagement: A qualitative study of British workers during the pandemic. Information Technology & People. 2021 doi: 10.1108/ITP-12-2020-0850. - DOI
    1. Akkerman SF, Bakker A. Boundary crossing and boundary objects. Review of Educational Research. 2011;81(2):132–169. doi: 10.3102/0034654311404435. - DOI
    1. Allen-Collinson J. Negative ‘marking’? University research administrators and the contestation of moral exclusion. Studies in Higher Education. 2009;34(8):941–954. doi: 10.1080/03075070902755641. - DOI
    1. Aoun J. Robot-proof: Higher education in the age of artificial intelligence. The MIT Press; 2018.
    1. Bartik, A. W., Cullen, Z. B., Glaeser, E. L., Luca, M. & Stanton, C. T. (2020). What jobs can be done at home during the Covid-19 crisis? Evidence from firm-level surveys. NBER Working Paper Series, Working Paper 27422, National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/papers/w27422

LinkOut - more resources