A Longitudinal Study of the Shift to Remote Work on Task and Personal Networks

What began as a temporary solution to slow down the transmission of COVID-19 became a large-scale shift in the remote and hybrid work landscape. Although there is evidence that organizational networks and communication changed in the first several months of the pandemic (e.g. Yang et al., 2022), it is unclear which effects were a function of the crisis context and which were likely to endure. This study is a longitudinal investigation following a sample of 416 individuals of how the shift to remote work affected their organizational networks—both task and personal networks—beyond the initial shock of transitioning to remote work. In this paper we theorize and find evidence that the changes in the characteristics of employee task and personal networks have persisted years into the pandemic, and that men and women are maintaining their networks differently. We find evidence that these network changes are related to feelings of inclusion within and attachment to their organizations with downstream consequences on turnover. Our study contributes to an emerging perspective on the tradeoffs that long-term remote work provides, which is of mounting theoretical and practical importance.