In the wake of the pandemic, it is clear that remote work is here to stay. It seems every week, there are more news stories about workers preferring to work remotely or companies closing physical office spaces.
This shift has employees and managers navigating new workplace challenges, not least of which is mental health concerns from working in isolation.
Now more than ever, there is much to be gained by learning from the lived experiences of gig workers — anyone working independently on a “gig-to-gig” basis. Many had experienced and experimented with managing a form of radical agency, flexibility, and autonomy in an environment where working in isolation was a norm long before it became a more global reality.
We are a team of management professors at Indiana University, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, McMaster University, and the University of Michigan. Drawing on our research on gig work, as well as that of others studying the gig economy, we can identify some of the challenges of working in isolation and offer some practical advice on how to address them.
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