Managing physical and virtual work environments during the COVID-19 pandemic: improving employee well-being and achieving mutual gains

Abstract Contemporary organisations continue to use flexible workspace configurations and increasingly are adopting more automated and intelligent digital systems to organise work. Workspace configurations have various forms and arrangements composed of the physical workspace (such as open-plan office spaces) and virtual workspace (e.g., teleworking). The aim of this Special Issue (SI) is to stimulate inquiry into the role of management, organisation and HRM in promoting mutual gains for employers and employees working in these environments. The essence of mutual gains is that HRM practices lead to greater employee well-being and increased employee performance, the latter being especially important to employers for achieving organisational goals. In ‘managing physical and virtual work environments during the Covid-19 pandemic’, we consider how work is organised in challenging physical and virtual workspace configurations as well as how people engage in activities that are paced and informed by automated and digital technologies. Our aim is to encourage exciting research on the role and implementation of management, organisation and HRM in physical and virtual workspace configurations, stimulate new scholarly discussions on the topic, and increase understanding of the application of new technology systems and tools. A specific objective of this SI is therefore to increase academic knowledge on the opportunities and challenges faced by employees working in different physical and virtual workspace conditions, and consider the consequences for employee well-being (Guest, 2017; Van De Voorde, Paauwe, & Van Veldhoven, 2012).