Re-humanising management through co-presence: Lessons from enforced telework during the second wave of Covid-19

The use of enforced telework during the Covid-19 crisis sheds light on the importance of co-presence—i.e., presence mediated by information and communication technologies instead of physical proximity—for managing people. Previous studies on telework have exposed the risk of social isolation, which can lead workers to feel dehumanised. In this paper, we investigate how management adapts to co-presence by drawing on 28 semi-structured interviews conducted in February and March 2021 among employees and managers from private and public organisations in Belgium. Surprising results show that co-presence was mainly lived as a way to maintain proximity and constituted an opportunity for some managers to re-humanise their work approach, and for employees to feel humanely managed. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for the study of humanisation and co-presence in management, including some critical considerations regarding the very notions of ‘de-’ and ‘re-humanisation’, and make recommendations in terms of technology, work organisation, and management.