Functions and relevance of spatial co-presence: Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic for evidence-based workplace and human capital management

Introduction: This study aims to analyze the role of co-presence against the background of COVID-19 pandemic to derive implications for an interdisciplinary, evidence-based workplace and human capital management. A theoretical framework is outlined that considers a range of topics from task performance to social and organizational contextual factors.

Methods: In a single organization qualitative case study, five focus group interviews including a total of 20 employees of an IT consultancy were conducted to identify the effects of the mandatory remote working regimes imposed by the COVID-19 Pandemic on task and contextual performance.

Results: Findings show that individual performance was assessed to have increased while internal processes remained at similar levels compared to pre-pandemic levels. Organizational culture, social contact, and identity, however, were reported to have considerably deteriorated in the view of the participants.

Discussion: The study shows that for a company that was very experienced with distributed working, the reduction of co-presence had important effects on performance and culture. Findings suggest that co-presence must be carefully managed in the future. This could become a new joint priority for workplace design, workplace management, and human capital management.

This creative work has been published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0) license which allows copying, and redistribution as well as adaptation of the original work provided appropriate credit is given to the original author and the conditions of the license are met.