Thesis supervisor:
This doctoral research project focuses on teleworking, i.e., a mode of remote work organization that has been undergoing a major transformation over the past year and a half. It proposes to re-examine the experience of teleworking and its implementation in the corporate world, in a context where it has been imposed as part of the health measures taken by the French government to combat the spread of Covid-19. While numerous surveys and studies have been devoted to teleworking in the decades preceding the health crisis, the current interest in new research lies in the fact that the context in which it is implemented has changed significantly. Firstly, companies have been forced to impose it at extremely short notice on various categories of employees, often covering a much larger proportion of working time than in the past. Teleworking was therefore not chosen or negotiated, whereas it could have been before the health crisis and government measures. As a result, a large number of employees had no choice but to telework and, in a matter of days, learn to use new tools, integrate new practices into their work, and communicate in a different way. This dynamic has also contributed to developing new meanings for work and blurring the boundaries between domestic and professional life. It has also led to confusion about roles and timeframes, forcing some employees to work remotely while simultaneously performing domestic tasks or homeschooling their children. Finally, teleworking has been linked to the mental health of employees during this period. In other words, it seems that this way of organizing work has had a very significant negative impact on mental health. The aim here is to try to understand the importance that companies and the various actors working within them have given to occupational health issues in the context of teleworking since the first lockdown. More specifically, the focus is on the association that has been made between this mode of remote work organization and mental health. Several time sequences will be considered, including periods of "majority" or even "total" teleworking (in terms of working time), implemented since the first lockdown in March 2020, as well as periods of partial or even complete return to the workplace, to which future periods will be added. This research project is inspired by interactionist sociology and lies at the intersection of several branches of the sociological discipline, such as the sociology of work and activity, organizations, institutions, and information and communication technologies. It proposes to study telework and the importance given to occupational health and mental health, focusing on three levels of analysis: macro, meso, and micro-sociological.Year of enrollment: 2021
Doctoral school: Organizations, Markets, Institutions (OMI)