Paper short abstract:

Studying the new forms and spatial distributions that “access work” takes in the remote and hybrid post-pandemic work environment shows how the responsibilities and power dynamics between managers, employees and participants has shifted and how it has been delegated to technosolutions.

Paper long abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to a large interest in new models of remote and hybrid work that has both continued and has been transformed in the post-pandemic work environment. Studies have been done on the benefits and drawbacks of these new ways of working including on flexibility, productivity, well-being and work-life balance. An additional area of interest has been how remote and hybrid work have affected people with disabilities and the accessibility of remote and hybrid work and the digital technologies involved in enabling it (Eriksson et al., 2023).

From a practice theory perspective, this accessibility should not be located in the devices and platforms themselves, nor only in the relation between an individual user and their devices, but in the practical “access work” enacted by all participants as a result of their “sociomaterial entanglement” (Orlikowski, 2007). Access work that traditionally has been invisible to a large degree and characterized by an unequal distribution of power and responsibility (Branham & Kane, 2015).

This paper draws from an interview study in Sweden with 26 people with disabilities about their working lives during the pandemic and explores the new forms and spatial distributions that “access work” takes in the remote and hybrid post-pandemic work environment. It shows how the responsibilities and power dynamics between managers, employees and participants has shifted and how it has been delegated to technosolutions.