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ABSTRACT
Remote work, especially working from home, has become the most common form of work in the third decade of the 21st century. What started at the beginning of the millennium as an experimental practice in some companies (mainly in the IT industry) has become widespread and unintentional in 2020 and 2021, due to Covid 19 pandemic. It changed some of the most important features of the jobs, such as the communication patterns and the conception of the workplace, leading not only to significant changes in the way work is done, but also to a different psycho-emotional perception ofwork in the context of changing socialization patterns. The need to transition to a virtual environment forced both companies and employees to try out different ways of working (e.g., managing virtual teams, ensuring infrastructure and access to work resources, managing teams, workspaces, etc.). The paper addresses some of the key factors that influence work performance at the organizational and individual levels. It presents how technological developments and growing awareness of alternative approaches to work organization are changing companies' perceptions of managing their most valuable resource, human potential, and discuss potentialfailures in telecommuting policies. The goal of this study is to provide insight on the impact of workplace flexibility on work and the broader implications for both companies and employees.
Keywords: Flexibility, Hybrid Organization, Remote Work, Technology, Work from Home
1.INTRODUCTION
The importance of work in its organizational and broader socioeconomic perspective is a focus of many studies that address economic, political, environmental, and social challenges. Work is primarily researched in the context of organizations (Kastelan and Sokolic, 2017). Delbridge and Sallaz (2015) define organizations based on four dimensions. Organizations are characterized and described by physical and material spaces that are constructed and experienced through social processes (physical dimension). They are also defined as hierarchical places of power and control (hierarchical dimension). They are seen as sources of new ideas, innovation, and creativity (innovation dimension). Finally, organizations are often defined as collections of actors working together to accomplish work and are therefore embedded in a cultural, economic, social, and political context (human dimension). Organizations are thus spaces and places of work (Delbridge and Sallaz, 2015). However, technological development allows the introduction of new ways of working, which...