Attitudes towards hybrid working vary, even within the one person. The flexibility it affords brings crucial questions to the fore. It raises contested issues such as how we should/could/must be involved in family life, when and how much we should work, or even what a successful life looks like.
The pictures featured in this section shed light on the distinctive priorities people establish while performing their work.. It explores the crossroads employees find themselves in every day when they make choices in working out what it means to ‘balance’ work versus family, hobbies, leisure, and so many other things we do in our lives. The distinction between public and private first made in the 20th century, now, faces new provocations.
Is it a blessing?
The picture is one of the few that captures people. Though we were careful in selecting inspiring photos, we were also concerned with our interviewees’ privacy and anonymity. Yet it is important to acknowledge how hybrid working addresses the ‘hybridity’ of roles that employees occupy. Working hybrid allows people to respond and be present to calls from both work and home demands. This is both freeing and overwhelming - one of the many paradoxes of the layered way of living and working that hybrid working invites.
Credits: Working from Home 3 © 2023 by Hybrid Working Project VU Amsterdam is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
