Abstract
While hybrid working offers many benefits, its individualizing inclination creates ‘new vulnerabilities’ by making social ties and work collectives more precarious. A growing number of studies have referred to co-presence to examine how hybrid work arrangements reshape sociality and togetherness at work. However, most consider co-presence as fundamentally distinct from vulnerability, creating a common divide between the two phenomena. This conceptual article posits a normative argument that recasting how co-presence relates to vulnerability should help to address the ‘new vulnerabilities’ at stake in hybrid working. After briefly exploring how the literature examines the interplay of co-presence and vulnerability, I draw on existential phenomenology – in particular, the ontological arguments of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Judith Butler – to develop the notion of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ before introducing three points of attention, namely how it is (1) ‘intercorporeal’, (2) ‘temporo-spatial’ and (3) ‘ethico-political’. I then outline the two main implications of this framework. First, it lays the groundwork for repoliticizing the hybrid workforce. Second, it offers practitioners a perceptual basis for imagining and learning new skills to ‘hold the collective together’ in hybrid organizational contexts. Finally, I present this article’s methodological contributions and suggest some avenues for future research.
Keywords
Introduction
In recent years, an increasing number of workers have moved away from the traditional ‘9 to 5’ office job towards more hybrid ways of working that combine digitally mediated and ‘direct’, physical co-presence across a variety of workspaces (e.g. office, home, public transport) (Halford, 2005; Izak et al., 2023; Sewell and Taskin, 2015). Digital technologies – such as laptops or mobile phones – play a key role in enabling synchronous and asynchronous collaboration in increasingly ‘loose social collectives’ (Castells, 2000 in Endrissat and Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, 2021). In that sense, the global use of teleworking during the COVID-19 pandemic – followed by the widespread introduction of hybrid working – represents a turning point in terms of how individuals relate to their professional and working communities (Ajzen and Taskin, 2021; Eurofound, 2023).
Hybrid work arrangements, which involve some form of teleworking, have thus been at the heart of recent debates on the ‘new normal’ of work and its consequences on social relations. Inasmuch as it reorganizes physical co-presence, hybrid work challenges conventional understandings and experiences of belonging to a work collective (Ajzen and Taskin, 2021; Dery and Hafermalz, 2016; Schiemer et al., 2023; Taskin et al., 2023). Many have argued that hybrid working, a post-pandemic arrangement, provides the ‘best of both worlds’, allowing workers to interact and collaborate through different modalities, whether it is face-to-face (i.e. in physical co-presence), virtual (e.g. on videoconferencing platforms such as Zoom) or blended (Baralou and Tsoukas, 2015; Fiol and O’Connor, 2005). While hybrid work offers some advantages (such as increased flexibility across spatial and temporal distances, adaptability to personal circumstances, improved work–life balance, greater inclusion of people with disabilities, etc.), some issues were also identified (Eurofound, 2023).
In particular, there is a gap between formally belonging to a team or an organization and experiencing feelings of togetherness. As it encourages individualistic attitudes towards work (e.g. being able to work from my preferred location rather than that of the group, choosing the best conditions for my personal productivity, etc.), hybrid working 1 can alter social dynamics, modifying the sense of what it means to be together as a ‘we’ (Cunliffe, 2022; Osler, 2020). The ‘individualizing inclination’ of hybrid working may come at the expense of ‘group cohesiveness, social ties and other characteristics of the “collective” in organizations’ (Ajzen and Taskin, 2021: 1; Boell et al., 2016; Ter Hoeven and Van Zoonen, 2015). This aspect of hybrid working produces what I call new vulnerabilities, which materialize at both the individual and organizational levels. At the individual level, people are more exposed to loneliness, social isolation or a loss of connection with the collective (Eurofound, 2023; Sewell and Taskin, 2015) – a new hire may feel more insecure regarding their place in a group or vulnerable because they have not been in physical contact with their teammates (Whittle and Mueller, 2009). At the organizational level, implementing hybrid work models can foster certain vulnerabilities – the spatial dispersion of colleagues and the lack of ‘office buzz’ may convey the impression of independent individuals performing tasks rather than a cohesive whole. This can lead to more siloed teams as well as problems with employee retention and engagement, making the work collective’s ‘social fabric’ more fragile and precarious (Blagoev et al., 2019; Endrissat and Islam, 2022) and, by extension, the organization more vulnerable and prone to become an ‘empty shell’. These vulnerabilities are not ‘new’ per se; some of them have existed since teleworking emerged in the 1970s (Felstead et al., 2003). Rather, their novelty lies in that they have become more salient with the post-pandemic normalization of hybrid working. Recent debates have drawn particular attention to the specific features of these emerging work models (e.g. in terms of employee relations, office layout, human resource policies), and how to mitigate their potentially harmful impacts on individuals and organizations (Wheatley et al., 2023). In this sense, the associated new vulnerabilities also raise the question of which skills and competencies practitioners need to learn to maintain strong social ties between colleagues and ‘keep the collective together’ in hybrid working conditions (Babapour Chafi et al., 2022; Borg and Söderlund, 2015; Eurofound, 2023).
Co-presence refers to being here with others, either as a ‘mode’ or state (e.g. sharing the same meeting room), or as the subjective experience of others (e.g. in a videoconference) (Zhao, 2003; Zhao and Elesh, 2008). However, being co-present with someone can also mean being attentive to the person’s feelings and needs more intimately, which, I find, is tantamount to recognizing their vulnerability. A growing number of management and organization studies have mobilized the concept of co-presence to examine how distributed and hybrid models reshape social relations and working communities. The existing literature reveals, for instance, insights into the micro-interactional (Collins, 2020; Vine, 2023), perceptual (Grabher et al., 2018; Campos-Castillo and Hitlin, 2013; O’Leary et al., 2014; Schiemer et al., 2023; Wilson et al., 2008; Zhao, 2003; Zhao and Elesh, 2008), identity-related (Ajzen and Taskin, 2021; Fiol and O’Connor, 2005; Taskin et al., 2023) and embodied (Aroles and Küpers, 2021; Hafermalz and Riemer, 2020; Vidolov, 2022) facets of co-presence, thus suggesting its usefulness in examining collective phenomena in a post-pandemic world of work. Yet, most of these studies have tended to consider co-presence as fundamentally distinct from vulnerability, thus creating a common divide between the two phenomena.
Vulnerability, defined as the quality of being exposed to physical, psychological or emotional harm, has received increasing attention in the field of work, management and organization studies (Corlett et al., 2019, 2021; Cutcher et al., 2022; Jeffrey and Thorpe, 2024; Mandalaki and Fotaki, 2020). Yet, it has rarely been used to examine how technology-enabled, hybrid ways of working affect social relations and work collectives. While paradigms of invulnerability and efficiency often permeate how hybrid working is practiced and researched, I argue that focusing on the relationship between co-presence and vulnerability could be relevant to engaging with the new vulnerabilities engendered by these models. The rapid adoption of hybrid working – and its potentially negative impact on the ‘we-ness’ of work collectives (Cunliffe, 2022; Osler, 2020) – also makes it urgent to investigate further the dynamics of co-presence and vulnerability, and to make their link more explicit. Thus, in this conceptual article, I seek to advance a normative argument by exploring the following questions: How could developing a conceptualization that recasts the interplay between co-presence and vulnerability enable addressing the ‘new vulnerabilities’ brought forth by hybrid working? What would be the implications of such a conceptualization for the organizational research and practice of hybrid work arrangements?
To reframe the relation between co-presence and vulnerability, I draw on existential phenomenology, a philosophical tradition and method concerned with describing phenomena ‘as they appear’ in one’s lived experience of the world and others. Its roots in embodied, subjective experience allow for the in-depth exploration of how individuals perceive and make sense of their co-presence with others, capturing this phenomenon’s nuances and hidden facets. This perspective is also particularly useful for examining the lived vulnerability of actors and the way in which it can be shared through experiences of co-presence. Specifically, the later ontological works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty ([1964] 1960, 1968, [1969] 1973, [2012] 1945) provide a relevant lens to look at co-presence and its relationship with vulnerability. In particular, Merleau-Ponty’s ‘indirect’ ontology (i.e. a relational ontology grounded in sensible and bodily experience) helps to challenge the common divide between co-presence and vulnerability found in much of the hybrid working literature. In that sense, Merleau-Ponty enables us to shed light on the ‘intercorporeal’ – a term that highlights how one’s embodied experience of the world is inherently intertwined with that of others – and ‘temporo-spatial’ nature of co-presence, emphasizing how becoming co-present, in space but above all in time, involves vulnerability. These two dimensions are highly relevant to re-examining the link between co-presence and vulnerability in hybrid organizational contexts where work collectives are more spatially dispersed and precarious. Yet, the ethical, moral and political implications remain largely implicit in Merleau-Ponty’s theorizing (Boublil, 2018). To attend to these dimensions of co-presence, I put Merleau-Ponty in dialogue with Judith Butler’s (2009, 2015, 2020, 2022) recent writings in which they develop a relational social ontology grounded in embodied, shared vulnerability. For Butler, it is because we are living, vulnerable bodies that we can be and act as a collective, further outlining what sharing a co-presence implies ethically and politically. Building on this combined framework, I put forward the notion of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ and introduce three ‘points of attention’, namely how it is ‘intercorporeal’, ‘temporo-spatial’ and ‘ethico-political’. Such conceptualization provides a novel way of thinking about the relationship between co-presence and vulnerability, which, I argue, has implications for addressing the new vulnerabilities at play in the age of hybrid working.
This framing has two main implications. First, it lays the groundwork for repoliticizing the hybrid workforce. By calling into question the basic assumption that co-presence and vulnerability are separate – instead conceiving them as interwoven through the notion of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ – this conceptual article invites researchers and practitioners to consider the hybrid team more as a ‘collective body’ that emerges in moments (in either physical, virtual or blended settings), and which is endowed with a performative and political force. Adopting such a perspective helps to counter the individualistic inclination of hybrid working modes, instead emphasizing how embodied, plural action can be sustained – and work collectives made less precarious – in these conditions. Second, I argue that the three points of attention described, which relate to ‘vulnerable co-presence’, provide a perceptual basis to imagine and learn new skills to make hybrid working more relationally sustainable. In particular, I claim that practitioners’ learning and application of these points of attention would lead them to better perceive and organize co-presence towards maintaining strong social ties and work collectives in hybrid organizational contexts and beyond.
The article is structured as follows. The next section takes inspiration from Alvesson and Sandberg (2011, 2020) to problematize the organizational literature on hybrid working, carefully examining how it has been treating the interplay between co-presence and vulnerability. In the third section, I draw on theories from existential phenomenology, especially Merleau-Ponty’s ([1964] 1960, 1968, [2012] 1945) ‘indirect’ ontology, which I put in conversation with Butler’s (2009, 2015, 2022) social ontology of shared vulnerability to propose the notion of ‘vulnerable co-presence’, bringing the two phenomena together. In the fourth section, I present the two main implications of this combined framework, briefly outline this article’s methodological contributions, and suggest some avenues for future research. This article ends with a brief conclusion.
Exploring the interplay of co-presence and vulnerability in hybrid ways of working: a brief literature review
Co-presence in the hybrid working literature: an absent vulnerability?
To examine how the hybrid working literature discusses the nexus between co-presence and vulnerability, I draw loosely on Alvesson and Sandberg’s (2011, 2020) problematizing literature review to identify ‘common assumptions’ and ‘suggest alternative ideas and ways of thinking’ (p. 1297). Using co-presence as an entry point allows me to examine how it relates to vulnerability in the literature. The concept of co-presence has been used heterogeneously in studies of hybrid work arrangements to describe workers’ experiences and relationships. Inspired by the (micro)sociologies of Durkheim (1912) and Goffman (1959), certain scholars assume that co-presence refers to a mainly spatial relationship of ‘being there’ in the same here and now (e.g. a physical co-presence in the office on certain fixed days) (Collins, 2020; Felstead et al., 2003; Fiol and O’Connor, 2005; Vine, 2023). While vulnerability is absent from these views, other studies have sought to describe how employees in conditions of hybrid work may suffer from stress (Kelliher and Anderson, 2010), ‘socio-spatial isolation’ (Halford, 2005) or a ‘fear of exclusion’ (Sewell and Taskin, 2015; Ter Hoeven and Van Zoonen, 2015). Such scholarly works inform us on what distance or ‘distantiation’ (i.e. the subjective experience of distance) (Taskin and Edwards, 2007) can do to the psyche of hybrid workers, foreshadowing some causal effects between reduced physical co-presence and emotional or psychological harm (as comprised by vulnerability).
While the aforementioned studies highlight the spatial or geographical aspect of co-presence, much of the recent management and organization literature tends to understand co-presence as a social relationship built on ‘mutual awareness, accessibility, and availability’ (Grabher et al., 2018: 5; see also Campos-Castillo and Hitlin, 2013; Schiemer et al., 2023; Zhao, 2003; Zhao and Elesh, 2008). Drawing on such an approach, researchers have shown that relational attachment and ‘perceived proximity’ could be experienced at a distance thanks to the mediation of digital technologies (O’Leary et al., 2014; Wilson et al., 2008). For instance, Wilson and colleagues (2008) reveal how geographically distant workers (as is often the case in hybrid working) engage in communication and social identification processes that increase ‘the cognitive salience of the other’ and help to ‘establish common ground’ (p. 12). Their study shows how one’s cognitive perception of co-presence enables one to communicate openly and share affects with another, whether in physical proximity or in a virtual context, thus shedding light on a sense of exposure and susceptibility although it is not directly addressed. In a similar vein, scholars have analyzed how the ‘re-regulation’ of co-presence – whether physical or virtual – could be used in hybrid working models to support social relationships (Ajzen and Taskin, 2021) or to counter the ‘dehumanizing effect’ of teleworking (Taskin et al., 2023). These studies are helpful for understanding the influence of co-presence in managing the potentially harmful effects of digitalization and hybrid working, especially how it affects working relationships and collectives. However, this body of literature does not examine in-depth how being co-present and being vulnerable are related within the experience of hybrid workers, as these two phenomena are generally treated as distinct from each other.
In this sense, recent research has built on process-oriented and phenomenological perspectives to explore the embodied and affective dimensions of co-presence (Aroles and Küpers, 2021; de Vaujany and Aroles, 2019; Hafermalz, 2021; Hafermalz and Riemer, 2020; McConn-Palfreyman et al., 2022; Satama et al., 2022; Vidolov, 2022; Willems, 2018). Going beyond a Cartesian, objectifying view of co-presence, they emphasize the role of bodily and sensory perception in how one experiences the presence of others. Instead of taking spatial or social relationships as a point of departure, scholars have highlighted the ways in which actors, through their lived and ‘embodied co-presence’, engage with others in more digitalized, hybrid work settings, such as virtual collaboration (Vidolov, 2022), distributed ‘new culture’ organizations (Hafermalz, 2021) or in digital education and pedagogy (Aroles and Küpers, 2021). For instance, Hafermalz and Riemer (2020) indicate how telenurses draw on an embodied sense of relationality and care to create an ‘interpersonal connectivity’ with their patients. Their study outlines a strong link between the experience of corporeal co-presence and the capacity for human connection, intimacy and empathy, which underpin vulnerability. The authors also shed light on the non-linear process of ‘becoming present with and for geographically distant others’ (Hafermalz and Riemer, 2020: 1639) in both an empathetic and agentic sense, thus stressing how co-presence can be used for purposes of care (to respond to others’ vulnerability) in a virtual context. Although other post-Cartesian research provides insight into how affective (Endrissat and Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, 2021) and ethical engagement (Aroles and Küpers, 2021) are involved in embodied experiences of co-presence, there remains a space in the literature to engage more directly with the very concept of vulnerability and the nexus of co-presence and vulnerability in relation with hybrid working. For practitioners, failing to address this dimension may increase the precariousness of social relationships and collectives, and alter the possibility of a strong and enduring ‘we’ (Osler, 2020) in hybrid work models. As organizational researchers, continuing to treat co-presence and vulnerability separately could prevent us from inspecting the new forms of sociality and shared vulnerability that take place in these settings. In particular, putting the bodies of literature on co-presence and vulnerability together can encourage more ‘care-ful’ ways of researching how members relate to each other and experience communality (Cunliffe, 2022) when working hybrid.
Vulnerability in organizational research and its relevance for studying hybrid work modes
There has been a surge of interest in vulnerability in recent years. Particularly in the fields of work and organization studies, researchers have developed different conceptualizations of vulnerability, using it to study participants of an executive education programme (Corlett et al., 2021), older workers (Cutcher et al., 2022) or for imagining new research practices (Jeffrey and Thorpe, 2024; Plester et al., 2022). While it traditionally refers to the capacity of being harmed physically or psychologically, vulnerability has been recently re-examined, especially by feminist, new materialist scholarship. For instance, Corlett et al. (2019) draw on Butler (2004) to reconceptualize vulnerability ‘as a strength’ rather than as a weakness, recognizing its value for managerial learning and identity work, and challenging dominant masculinized discourses. Their study enlightens emergent views of vulnerability, arguing that someone’s (e.g. a middle or senior manager’s) vulnerability should always be understood in relation to that of others, thus implying a mutual interdependence and exposure. Furthermore, organizational scholars have explored ‘embodied vulnerability’ – i.e., understood as deeply connected to the material and bodily aspects of existence – and its implications for ethical considerations. For instance, Mandalaki and Fotaki (2020) challenge abstract ethical principles to propose instead a ‘relational embodied ethics of the commons’ that considers the role of sharing and recognizing an embodied vulnerability (e.g. through bodily sensations and experiences) in sustaining communities. Their theorization informs the study by Plester et al. (2022: 60) who, taking the body as ‘a site of resistance and knowledge’, delve into female researchers’ experiences of vulnerability. Taking inspiration from Judith Butler’s (2005) work, they introduce the concept of ‘agentic vulnerability’ as a way of encouraging more ethical research practices and activism. In addition, Cutcher et al. (2022), examine how vulnerability involves dynamics of resistance and recognition by exploring the case of older workers in a call centre. Drawing on a Butlerian (2016, 2020) framework, the authors analyze how ‘older operators resisted recognition regimes by asserting their presence’ (Cutcher et al., 2022: 986), revealing the interacting relations between situated, co-present workers and the possibilities for resistance. In this sense, these contributions highlight the relevance of mobilizing Butler’s theories to consider the embodied experiences and ethical implications of vulnerability, as well as its link with dynamics of recognition and resistance in organizational contexts.
Finally, Jeffrey and Thorpe (2024) address the challenges posed by the increasing digitalization in post-pandemic research by proposing a posthuman view of vulnerability (i.e. one that includes human and nonhuman materialities) and ‘digital intimacies’ to navigate the lack of physical co-presence. As a continuation of their study, I seek to examine more holistically how phenomena of co-presence and vulnerability intersect and how such intersection is relevant to understanding hybrid work contexts. Although recent studies have outlined the relevance of Butler’s views on vulnerability for exploring the relational, ethical and political facets at play in organizations, there is a lack of research that uses them for more digitized ways of working and especially hybrid working. Yet, as discussed below, Butler’s conceptualization of vulnerability informs us on the self–others relationship, recognition-based politics and the impact of broader socio-economic factors, which shape the experiences and sociality of hybrid workers. By examining such aspects, practitioners and researchers could better understand and organize their response to the new vulnerabilities generated by these working models. Therefore, in the next section, I operationalize philosophical ideas from existential phenomenology to reflect on the interplay of co-presence and vulnerability in light of the new vulnerabilities associated with hybrid settings. In the next section, I first propose to rely on Merleau-Ponty ([1964] 1960, 1968, [2012] 1945) ‘indirect’ ontology to rethink the co-presence–vulnerability nexus. Then, I examine this relationship through the lens of Butler’s (2009, 2015, 2020, 2022) social ontology of shared vulnerability and show how putting the two theorists in conversation allows me to develop the notion of ‘vulnerable co-presence’, which bears implications for the study on and practice of hybrid work arrangements.
Towards a phenomenological framing of the co-presence–vulnerability nexus with Merleau-Ponty and Butler
A theoretical framework grounded in existential phenomenology
Phenomenological thinking takes its roots in the study and description of phenomena. Phenomenology, as first developed by Edmund Husserl, consists of a method for studying the richness of lived experiences without presupposing the existence of an external, objective reality, as is the case in the ‘natural attitude’ – and in most experimental methods – towards life’s objects. While it is primarily concerned with how structures of consciousness are subjectively experienced, Husserlian phenomenology (also named ‘pure’ or transcendental) has influenced a range of thinkers who sought to develop and apply this approach to many aspects of human and social existence. Regrouped under the banner of ‘existential phenomenology’, philosophers such as Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, Scheler and others have emphasized lived, bodily experience when examining issues of time, space, freedom or responsibility. Although their theories vary greatly, the methods they employ, as well as the ontologies (i.e. studies on the nature of being or existence) they develop, help to make sense of complex social phenomena (Bancou et al., 2022). Thus, I suggest that existential phenomenology provides a rich foundation for examining the interplay of co-presence and vulnerability, and how they are experienced in hybrid modes of working. 2
Reframing the co-presence–vulnerability nexus through Merleau-Ponty’s ‘indirect’ ontology
Pursuing Husserl’s critique against scientific reductionism, the French phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty ([1964] 1960, 1968, [1969] 1973, [2012] 1945) started to develop, in his later writings, an ‘indirect’ ontology to reframe how we relate to others (e.g. persons, living beings, landscapes). Taking the living, sensible body as a point of departure, Merleau-Ponty (1968, [2012] 1945) considers that perception (e.g. how we sense the world through our senses of touch, sight, hearing and smell) is not a mere sensation or a cognitive function of mastering external objects, but the locus of a living relationship between beings. It is about being in a relationship ‘from’ life and with the living. For Merleau-Ponty, this means that we are always in a tension of semi-alterity since the other is never completely the other, and I can never fully comprehend how they perceive the world. Such a relationship thus constitutes an otherness that remains incomplete or ‘indirect’, from which Merleau-Ponty develops an ontological theory to further describe its nuances.
In this article, I argue that Merleau-Ponty’s indirect ontology offers a relevant framework for studying the interplay of co-presence and vulnerability for two main reasons. On one hand, it provides an ontological shift for conceiving that corporeal presence is never isolated but always involves a ‘being-with’, a co-presence then, grounding any relationship within a common bodily reality. On the other hand, it allows for a holistic exploration of how subjects, in their embodied co-existence, navigate shared spaces (physical or virtual), engage with others and experience vulnerability. While other phenomenologists, such as Heidegger ([1962] 1927) or Levinas ([1969] 1961), theorize how being co-present with another constitutes a primordial aspect of human existence, Merleau-Ponty brings further attention to the lived, immediate and embodied aspects of shared existence, his work being particularly helpful to consider the dynamics of co-presence and vulnerability and their interaction in the context of hybrid working. In the following paragraphs, I seek to explore how Merleau-Ponty’s theories allow to recast co-presence as ontologically inseparable from vulnerability in a two-stage movement: first, by considering the ‘intercorporeal’ dimension of co-presence and how it leads to further consider the mutual vulnerability of hybrid workers and second, by emphasizing the ‘temporo-spatial’ nature at play in shared experiences of co-presence and vulnerability in hybrid settings.
Merleau-Ponty’s intercorporeality: being co-present and vulnerable in hybrid working
In recent years, Merleau-Ponty’s existential phenomenology has inspired a range of organizational studies that describe individual and shared experiences in more scattered, virtual work settings. While some have engaged with Merleau-Pontian understandings of ‘embodiment’ and embodied knowledge (Hafermalz and Riemer, 2020; Willems, 2018), others have discussed the idea of ‘flesh’ or ‘flesh-of-the-world’ (Ladkin, 2013). Yet, others have drawn on the concept of ‘intercorporeality’ to question the disembodied character of virtual collaboration (Vidolov, 2022). These studies form an emerging line of research to which this conceptual article seeks to contribute by exploring more comprehensively the relationship of co-presence and vulnerability in hybrid working through Merleau-Ponty’s perspective.
In elaborating his later indirect ontology (also called an ‘ontology of the sensible’) ([1964] 1960, 1968, [1969] 1973, [2012] 1945), Merleau-Ponty considers how beings inhabit the world from and through their embodied perception. Their habitual co-presence also implies an inherent relationality with other beings: ‘I experience that presence of others in myself or of myself in others’ (Merleau-Ponty [1964] 1960: 97), therefore outlining the immediate and constitutive nature of our interrelation. Merleau-Ponty (1968) develops the notion of ‘intercorporeality’ (intercorporéité) as a way to highlight how I am related to the other both in the visible world (e.g. in physical or virtual co-presence) and through an invisible, ‘interior armature’ (p. 149) that envelops us. Accordingly, embodied subjects cannot be conceived as independent but always in relation with each other as they share an intercorporeality that precedes their relationship in a pre-reflective way. Although this emphasizes subjects’ interconnectedness and mutual influence, it does not mean a complete and constant fusion between self and other. Rather, the ‘I’ and the other resonate and affect one another through their bodily expressions, movements and gestures. In this sense, Merleau-Ponty’s intercorporeality provides an ontological basis to further consider the dynamic interplay of co-present, vulnerable bodies in hybrid working. Especially, it enables us to capture how hybrid workers, through their embodied co-existence, belong to a collective body (Merleau-Ponty, 1968); an inherent ‘we’ that both involves and transcends their individualities across physically and virtually shared workspaces. Such intercorporeal affiliation implies not only that co-presence can be felt in both settings – thus allowing for a togetherness to emerge – but also leads to recognizing how vulnerability is intricately woven into shared bodily engagements. While co-presence may be less obvious in hybrid ways of working, it is nevertheless always accessible through bodily and sensory perceptions. For instance, when feeling lonely during a video call, a new recruit could draw on their sense of touch or smell to literally ‘feel’ the co-presence of their manager who waves at them through the screen. Although it is mediated through digital tools, their embodied co-presence highlights a shared vulnerability, which, in that moment, both affects and connects them. Their interrelation also manifests while sharing an office space, the same gesture expressing how their mere co-presence entails a mutual openness and exposure.
Sharing a ‘field of presence’: towards a temporo-spatial understanding of co-presence and vulnerability with Merleau-Ponty
Following Merleau-Ponty’s ([2012] 1945) indirect ontology, the lived, phenomenal body constitutes a ‘primordial field of presence’ (p. 194) in which the other does not appear as an object but manifests as a ‘perspective’ of my field, and I of his, because of our intercorporeality. This dynamic intertwining with the other goes beyond a static understanding of co-presence, acknowledging the constant flux and mutual influence between subjects. The time in which ‘we’ co-exist is ‘not merely the consciousness of a succession’, following a linear logic, but the combination of different fields of presence in the ‘same temporal wave’, according to a processual view (Merleau-Ponty, [2012] 1945: 277; see also Lipták, 2021). This means that Merleau-Ponty (1968) places time over space when he describes how the presence and absence of others are ‘only variations’ in my field of presence, recognizing that the continuity of past experiences, the immediacy of present perceptions, and the anticipation of future interactions all take place within the same field. Therefore, I become temporally co-present with another who occupies my concern ‘moment by moment’ (Merleau-Ponty, [2012] 1945: 180) beyond spatial boundaries. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of the body as a ‘field of presence’ in becoming has two main implications for approaching the relationship between co-presence and vulnerability in hybrid working contexts. First, it allows us to move towards a ‘temporo-spatial’ view of these phenomena, revealing that how we experience them ‘in the moment’ matters more than sharing the same objective reality. This is particularly relevant in light of the ‘multi-localization’ (Halford, 2005) of hybrid workers who move more freely between fixed and impromptu workplaces, both private and public (Cnossen et al., 2021), making a focus on space less warranted to investigate the dynamics of co-presence and vulnerability in those settings. For instance, when working from home, a hybrid worker can rely on past experiences in another place (e.g. a recent gathering with colleagues in a café) to sense their colleagues within their ‘field of presence’. Second, Merleau-Ponty’s conception further considers the role of intentions in becoming co-present and vulnerable with others in hybrid conditions. It is what ‘we project ourselves’ towards (Merleau-Ponty, [2012] 1945: 159) that guides our experience of others, allowing us to bring them ‘close’ (and to become close to them) in the shared temporality of our co-presence. Vulnerability, in this sense, is continuous even though it can be made more apparent in certain situations (e.g. when expressing sadness regarding the departure of a colleague on Zoom or at a weekly lunch meeting). Therefore, a Merleau-Pontian ([1969] 1973) stance leads to see work collectives in hybrid working not as scattered in an objective space but rather as ‘always inserted at the junction of the world and ourselves’ (p. 191) – and in this sense always accessible – making it possible to intentionally ‘activate’ them at any moment in time.
Bringing in Judith Butler’s social ontology of shared vulnerability
In the previous section, I sought to re-examine the relationship between co-presence and vulnerability through the lens of Merleau-Ponty (1968, [2012] 1945) indirect ontology. Doing so enables to reveal the ‘intercorporeality’ of co-present, vulnerable actors in hybrid working as well as the ‘temporo-spatial’ orientation of how these phenomena are lived. Merleau-Ponty offers insight to explore shifting experiences of co-presence and vulnerability in hybrid working modes, thus constituting a first step towards addressing the new vulnerabilities at play in these settings. However, Merleau-Ponty’s writings are not as concerned as Judith Butler’s with the ethical, moral and political effects of vulnerability, as these dimensions are largely implicit in his approach. In particular, while Merleau-Ponty provides some detailed descriptions of habitual co-presence – and how it involves a bodily interdependence – a focus on ‘the vulnerability of the body’ and its ‘normative power’ is missing (Huth, 2018: 130). Yet, it seems crucial to further consider these aspects in light of the new vulnerabilities generated by hybrid work and how its individualizing inclination potentially affects social ties, making work collectives more precarious (Ajzen and Taskin, 2021).
This gap leads me to mobilize the work of American feminist theorist Judith Butler (2004, 2009, 2015, 2020, 2022), who conceptualizes shared vulnerability as the basis of a bodily, social ontology. While Butler is mostly known for their theory of gender performativity and identity construction, their recent writings have engaged with themes such as war, language, mourning, social justice, public assembly, (non-)violence and resistance. In the wake of their ‘ontological turn’ (Charpentier, 2019), Butler has been developing and honing in a socio-political theory linked to a ‘social ontology’ (Butler, 2009) in which shared, bodily vulnerability and its recognition occupy a central place. Their inscription within existential phenomenology has been both acknowledged by Butler (2015, 2022) themselves and studied by others (Boublil, 2018; Huth, 2018). Yet, what leads me to draw on Butler’s theories is less their intellectual affiliation to existential phenomenology – one of many – than the unique framework they provide to ‘stress the implications of a sensible that is always already impregnated with an ethical and political sense’ (Huth, 2018: 123). For Butler, the relationality and intercorporeality of living subjects described by Merleau-Ponty cannot be understood outside of social norms and politics, which structure how vulnerability is experienced. I thus argue that Butler’s (2009, 2015, 2022) social ontology offers a useful lens to complete Merleau-Ponty’s theories in recasting the interplay between co-presence and vulnerability, extending existing approaches in hybrid working research and practice. Therefore, in the following paragraphs, I develop the second step of this article’s theoretical reframing before outlining the synthesis of this joint framework through the notion of ‘vulnerable co-presence’, presenting its relevance for the research on and practice of hybrid working modes, and exposing three points of attention linked to this construct and phenomenon, namely how it is ‘intercorporeal’, ‘temporo-spatial’ and ‘ethico-political’.
A Butlerian perspective on the interplay of co-presence and vulnerability: considering the ethical and political implications
Judith Butler’s theoretical works are increasingly referred to in work, management and organizational research (Tyler, 2019). While some studies explore gender in the workplace (Tyler and Cohen, 2010), others expand on ‘embodied relational ethics’ (Jeffrey and Thorpe, 2024; Mandalaki and Fotaki, 2020). Still, other articles draw on Butler to investigate how vulnerability and recognition are experienced and organized in contemporary working life (Corlett et al., 2019, 2021; Cutcher et al., 2022). Building on this last set of studies, I wish to continue translating Butler’s concepts to the sphere of management and, more specifically, explore how they reframe our understanding of co-presence and vulnerability in hybrid ways of working. While Butler’s writings are often concerned with the impact of state violence or global policies on particularly vulnerable populations (e.g. transgender individuals, illegal immigrants, prisoners in high-security prisons), I argue that employing their theories to examine the effect of allegedly harmless practices such as hybrid work on social relations and work collectives is worthwhile.
Following Butler’s social ontology, thinking of co-presence outside of vulnerability is difficult. Like Merleau-Ponty, Butler considers the social character of bodily life insofar as the individual living body is never self-sufficient but always exists ‘beyond itself’. This means that bodily life depends on other living organisms to sustain itself, whether humans, plants or microbes. Not only am I co-present with another through my body and senses, but this co-presence makes us ‘vulnerable by definition’ (Butler, 2009: 33). The subject’s corporeal vulnerability (i.e. their bodily capacity of ‘affecting and being affected’ in Butler’s words) structures their experience of the world and others. It is both a general condition of existence and an aspect that shapes our lived experiences of co-presence, whether in physical or virtual spaces. While Merleau-Ponty’s conceptualization of social relations as ‘intercorporeal’ points towards a certain ethics, Butler’s (2004, 2009, 2015, 2022) relational ontology develops this view by making the ethical, moral and political sense of bodily, shared vulnerability more prominent.
First, Butler’s perspective further accounts for how our embodied sense of co-presence automatically entails an ethical tie to others. Being a body and sharing this embodiment with other living beings produces an ethos of interdependence insofar as we are bound to a ‘fundamental sociality’ (Butler, 2009). While ethical relations of reciprocity are ‘always there’, Butler (2015) suggests there are different ways of being together that serve to collectively perform such ‘embodied ethics’ (e.g. in social movements) (see Mandalaki and Fotaki, 2020). They also consider the role of digital technologies in enabling ‘a form of ethical recognition and connection’ (Butler, 2015: 105). For instance, Butler (2022: 61) takes the COVID-19 pandemic as a period when humanity sought to ‘keep visceral connections alive through virtual means’, outlining the possibility of an ethical togetherness in the digital age. For Butler, the co-presence of bodies – whether it is in a physical space (e.g. a public street, an office) or in a virtual space – ontologically implies a mutual openness and vulnerability.
Second, Butler (2004) considers that such vulnerability, which they link to precarity, is ‘distributed differently’ because of how socio-economic conditions are structured by political life. Starting from this premise, Butler (2015: 11) elaborates a normative critique of ‘induced forms of precarity’ (e.g. state violence, social inequalities, poverty) that make some individuals ‘more vulnerable than others’. Taking public gatherings such as Black Lives Matter or Occupy Wall Street, Butler (2015: 197) considers that these forms of co-presence in the public space are enacting a ‘collective thereness’ (p. 197), one that ‘asserts and instates the body in the midst of the political field’ (p. 11). More specifically, these public assemblies draw on their shared corporeal vulnerability to resist and ask that their precarity – both a bodily condition (precariousness) and one that is determined by socio-political structures (precarity) – be recognized (Butler, 2004; 2009; 2015). Therefore, going back to the idea of a collective body (Merleau-Ponty, 1968), the relational social ontology developed by Butler further establishes the agentic and political power of being co-present and vulnerable, and recognized as such (Butler, 201; Butler and Athanasiou, 2013). According to them, social realities are not fixed or predetermined but rather performative and constructed through repeated acts and behaviors, thereby laying the foundations for more recognition-based politics.
Drawing on Butler, these ethical, moral and political considerations reconfigure how we understand the interplay of co-presence and vulnerability in hybrid working in two main ways. First, their social relational ontology leads to further consider their inherent intertwinement, but also to ethically ground experiences of co-presence, whether they are physically proximate or digitally mediated. In hybrid working, when colleagues only see each other in online meetings for days, weeks or even months, trusting the other and being vulnerable might come less naturally. Yet, adopting a Butlerian approach would encourage them to draw on their bodily sense of co-presence to listen in and support each other in a caring manner by mobilizing a shared vulnerability that is always already there. This is especially relevant considering online forms of sociality and togetherness (Osler, 2020) in which our affective and ethical connection to others may be less obvious due to a lack of shared physical spaces. Second, Butler’s (2009) social ontology provides a rich foundation to connect experiences of co-presence and vulnerability to the ‘politics of recognition’. Since, as a living body, I am co-present with others and vulnerable ‘by definition’, I am also subject to normative frames that determine the extent to which my vulnerability is recognized. This means that, using Butler, we can no longer think about work collectives in hybrid working only as flexible networks of independent workers (Castells, 2000; Endrissat and Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, 2021). In opposition to an individualistic view, Butler enables to ‘re-politicize’ those collectives by granting them with an inherently performative and political force. While hybrid work models tend to isolate workers (both spatially and relationally), which reduces their capacity for ‘a powerful political contestation’ (Ajzen and Taskin, 2021: 10), recognizing their shared vulnerability lays the foundation for acting as a collective body. In this sense, a Butlerian ontology opens the way for new modes of relating and being together in hybrid work arrangements, whether it is to maintain a sense of solidarity and ‘we-ness’ (Cunliffe, 2022) or to resist certain normative pressures.
Combining the ontological arguments of Merleau-Ponty and Butler: towards the notion of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ for hybrid ways of working
In the preceding sections, I have attempted to recast the interplay of co-presence and vulnerability through the lens of Merleau-Ponty ([1964] 1960, 1968, [1969] 1973, [2012] 1945) indirect ontology, before outlining the contribution of Butler’s (2009, 2015, 2022) social ontology of shared vulnerability. Although Merleau-Ponty and Butler are both concerned with a phenomenological description of experiences of selves and others, their theories provide different yet complementary perspectives to examine the co-presence–vulnerability nexus. More specifically, Merleau-Ponty’s ontology offers a thorough analysis of habitual, bodily experiences of co-presence, enabling us to understand how our embodied relationality or ‘intercorporeality’ entails a shared vulnerability. His conception of a ‘field of presence’ (Merleau-Ponty, 1968) is also important for considering the ways in which co-presence and vulnerability are guided by phenomenal, not objective, distance in that I become co-present with another who matters for me in the moment. While this constitutes a first step in reframing the co-presence–vulnerability nexus, the lack of an explicitly ethical, moral and political dimension led me to engage with Butler’s (2009, 2015, 2022) recent work in a second step. In particular, Butler (2009) refers abundantly to the normative frames and other ‘politics of recognition’ that structure the subject’s experiences of co-presence and vulnerability. If their relational ontology is built on intercorporeal existence, Butler (2015) emphasizes that such experiences also comprise an ethical response: the bodily capacity of affecting and being affected by co-present others means that we are morally obliged to each other. Co-presence in this sense cannot be thought of outside of vulnerability, nor can moral and ethical aspects be taken out of the equation. Therefore, combining Merleau-Ponty’s and Butler’s ontologies, I propose to conceptualize ‘vulnerable co-presence’, which allows us to move beyond the common separation of co-presence and vulnerability in the organizational literature, while offering a multifaceted concept that is relevant to address the new vulnerabilities associated with hybrid working. Such notion consists less of a rigid reconceptualization of either ‘co-presence’ or ‘vulnerability’ than a semantic way of problematizing the ‘received wisdom’ (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2011, 2020) and providing a novel approach to these phenomena and their relationship. Next, I briefly outline three specific points of attention to show what ‘vulnerable co-presence’ entails before describing the implications of such conceptualization for hybrid working research and practice.
Three points of attention linked to ‘vulnerable co-presence’
Point of attention no.1: intercorporeal
Considering ‘vulnerable co-presence’ means paying closer attention to the way in which our embodied sense of self and others precedes our social interactions. This foundational form of co-presence naturally implies a mutual vulnerability, which is shared by all beings and structures both our individual perceptions and shared experiences. In other words, we do not exist as isolated subjects; rather we are in continuous relation with the world and others, which also means that we, as living bodies, are not impervious but always susceptible to various forms of physical or emotional harm. Instead of hiding or glossing over the body, this point of attention emphasizes that bodily interconnection is essential in understanding how everyday experiences of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ are lived and shared in hybrid ways of working. If this aspect is largely absent from most studies on hybrid work arrangements (Ajzen and Taskin, 2021; Boell et al., 2016; Fiol and O’Connor, 2005; Schiemer et al., 2023; Taskin et al., 2023), recent phenomenological accounts of virtual or dispersed organizational contexts have granted it more importance (Aroles and Küpers, 2021; Hafermalz and Riemer, 2020; Vidolov, 2022; Willems, 2018). This article complements this latter set of studies by highlighting this intercorporeal dimension in joint experiences of co-presence and vulnerability, and showing its relevance in examining how hybrid workers relate to each other and feel together in these conditions. It also sheds light on the role of bodily sensations, both remarkable and discrete, in experiences of belonging to a vulnerable, collective body of living beings. Whether our social encounters are physically proximate, digitally mediated or in between, our bodies become conduits for connection and togetherness. I further argue that such point of attention is relevant for exploring contexts that do not comprise ‘exclusively virtual collaboration’ (Vidolov, 2022) or extraordinary conditions such as ‘enforced teleworking’ during the COVID-19 pandemic (Taskin et al., 2023). The normalization of hybrid working models, and the associated new vulnerabilities, lead me to re-examine – using a phenomenological lens – how this dimension participates in how we engage with each other and act collectively through non-verbal cues, subtle gestures and other ‘embodied subtleties’ (Satama et al., 2022). If we take the example of a hybrid worker who alternates between working from home and attending in-person meetings at the office, their body constitutes a channel of communication and liaison in both settings, although certain nuances (e.g. a posture, a voice tone) influence their sense of being vulnerably co-present with their colleagues in each one. Recognizing that there are different forms or degrees of ‘vulnerable co-presence’, such as in situations of apparent absence (e.g. because of partial attention in a meeting room or during purely virtual interactions), is useful for understanding new forms of relational engagement, sociality and communality in hybrid working.
Point of attention no.2: temporo-spatial
The second point of attention leads us to take into account the primacy of time over space when examining how ‘vulnerable co-presence’ is experienced and organized in hybrid organizational contexts. Although the spatial dimension is not entirely ignored, this aspect encourages to focus on the temporal unfolding of co-presence and vulnerability. Organizational research into virtuality and hybridity at work has generally emphasized the role of space and place through developing concepts such as ‘perceived proximity’ (O’Leary et al., 2014; Wilson et al., 2008), or ‘spacing identity’ (Ajzen and Taskin, 2021). This makes sense insofar as hybrid working is very much about arranging the spatial co-presence of actors. For instance, in their study, Schiemer et al. (2022) examine how creative songwriting takes place in two types of ‘collaborative spaces’, a physical camp and an online platform, to highlight the importance of ‘organizing copresence in different spatial settings’ (p. 21). However, I find that examining further the temporal and processual nature of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ could complement existing studies on hybrid working. In particular, the new vulnerabilities raised by these modes (e.g. hybrid workers’ social isolation or lack of belonging) happen in space but also in time, through their lived, ephemeral experiences of selves and others. This temporal dimension also underscores the fluidity and dynamism at play in social encounters. Drawing on a ‘temporo-spatial’ view, we are more encouraged to see how participants (e.g. during an in-person, online or blended meeting) ‘become co-present’ in the moment – through their phenomenal bodies – and during which a shared vulnerability materializes. This process transcends spatial and temporal boundaries, making it highly relevant to studying social, collective phenomena in hybrid modes in which actors interact more fluidly across multiple workspaces. As other phenomenologically inspired studies have pointed out (de Vaujany and Aroles, 2019; Hafermalz and Riemer, 2020), being together in virtual or hybrid forms of work is less about sharing the same space than experiencing a ‘specific temporal simultaneity’ with others (Aroles and Küpers, 2021: 8). This article, by introducing this ‘temporo-spatial’ dimension, extends their findings by re-emphasizing how sharing a common time matters more than the space(s) where hybrid activities occur. When in ‘vulnerable co-presence’, our sense of time becomes intimately linked to that of others, allowing for synchronicity to emerge between spatially proximate or distant colleagues. In addition, this dimension points to the central role of embodied intentions and how orienting them influences our experiences of shared moments and rhythms (e.g. of attentiveness or communality) in hybrid work. This means that our bodily movements, expressions and actions are imbued with meaning and purpose, which also shape how we live social interactions. Going back to the case of the hybrid worker, they would appreciate more the temporality and rhythm in which they experience social encounters (or the lack of it) than the spatial setting in which they take place. For instance, by intentionally recognizing how their feelings of loneliness may fluctuate throughout the day and are influenced by aspects such as the timing of virtual meetings, the duration of in-person interactions, or the transition between work and non-work activities.
Point of attention no.3: ethico-political
Finally, the concept of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ encourages greater attention to the ethics and politics that are attached to experiences of co-presence and vulnerability in hybrid working. Although ‘co-presence’ has long been used in research articles on distributed and hybrid work (Campos-Castillo and Hitlin, 2013; Schiemer et al., 2023; Zhao, 2003; Zhao and Elesh, 2008), there is a shortage of studies that thoroughly examine how this phenomenon is linked to ethical and moral obligations. Yet, being genuinely co-present and vulnerable with someone is not ethically neutral – quite the contrary. It implies recognizing the moral demands of another, whether it is an individual or a collective. Such point of attention thus underscores the ethical imperative of attending to the shared vulnerability that is expressed in our social interactions. While recent sociomaterial and phenomenologically-oriented studies have outlined how being co-present in technology-enabled settings involves an ‘affective solidarity’ (Endrissat and Islam, 2022), relations of care (Hafermalz and Riemer, 2020) or an ‘ethical responsiveness’ (Aroles and Küpers, 2021), this article seeks to expand them by inviting readers to look for these aspects in hybrid ways of working. In particular, it encourages them to reconsider what the hybridity of face-to-face and virtual social encounters does to the ethics and politics of co-presence. For instance, by further perceiving and responding to the ethical demands of hybrid workers, whether it relates to a fear of isolation, a lack of community bonding or a request for increased visibility. However, the quest for social recognition can turn into a rat race whereby hybrid workers compete for exposure using both embodied and digital means (e.g. making oneself ‘available’ on messaging platforms outside of normal working hours) (Leonardi and Treem, 2020). The ‘enormous pressure to fit in and belong’ (Hafermalz, 2021: 710) may alter the possibility of a genuinely shared vulnerability insofar as individual visibilization and self-promotion clash with the existential recognition of an ontological interdependence, sometimes even leading to increased isolation. A response to the ‘struggle for recognition’ and its marketization lies in enacting modes of subjectification and belonging that are ‘different from the ones implied by the governmentality of property ownership and self-ownership’ (Butler and Athanasiou, 2013: 159). In this sense, ‘vulnerable co-presence’ provides a political foundation for individuals to performatively come together in solidarity and resistance against certain established norms. Collective, political engagements can be more challenging in hybrid working contexts where encounters are often performance-oriented, such as in videoconference meetings that prioritize efficiency over solidarity. The construct’s ‘ethico-political’ dimension thus offers to contradict this tendency by re-emphasizing how being co-present (in-person or online) always implies recognizing a mutual vulnerability that empowers both individual workers and hybrid work collectives. Finally, taking this aspect into account means acknowledging that precariousness is unfairly distributed and that socio-economic inequalities may be accentuated according to how hybrid conditions are politically structured. For example, this leads to further understand how certain employees may find themselves in more or less precarious situations (e.g. of social isolation or economic distress) when working hybrid. Therefore, the concept of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ can also be used as an ethical and moral compass to guide collective action in combatting such inequalities. Considering how the hybrid worker struggles with feelings of disconnection or exclusion using this view, we better recognize how such feelings are not experienced individually but shared by many others and result from certain norms, politics and power dynamics involved in the design and implementation of hybrid working models.
Implications for hybrid working research and practice
The increasing adoption of hybrid models raises new concerns with regards to how individuals relate to each other and ‘feel together’ at work (Ajzen and Taskin, 2021; Boell et al., 2016; Eurofound, 2023). While most studies on hybrid working tend to separate co-presence and vulnerability, this article seeks to address this gap in research and offer a normative argument for recasting how co-presence relates to vulnerability. Drawing on the phenomenological ontologies of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Judith Butler, I put forward the notion of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ as well as three points of attention, which, I argue, contribute to the literature and practice of hybrid working arrangements. More specifically, the main implications of this conceptual framing are twofold. First, by challenging the common divide between co-presence and vulnerability, it lays the groundwork for a repoliticization of the hybrid workforce, theoretically showing how plural, embodied action can be sustained in these settings. Second, based on the three points of attention of ‘vulnerable co-presence’, this article offers a new perceptual basis for imagining and learning skills to make hybrid work models more relationally sustainable. In the following paragraphs, I thus present these two main implications before outlining this article’s methodological contributions and suggesting avenues for future research at the intersection of hybrid working, co-presence and vulnerability.
Laying the groundwork for repoliticizing the hybrid workforce
The spatial hybridization of work (Halford, 2005; Sewell and Taskin, 2015) poses major challenges in terms of safeguarding strong social ties and communities (Cunliffe, 2022). In this context, the notion of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ offers a conceptual response to the question ‘what holds a group together in hybrid contexts?’ Since our modes of being and relating are predefined by an intercorporeal co-presence, we are mutually vulnerable together and bound by definition. By questioning the common separation between co-presence and vulnerability, this notion offers a phenomenological framework that invites researchers and practitioners to modify their approach to the social, relational and collective aspects of hybrid work. In particular, it lays the foundations for repoliticizing the hybrid workforce in three ways.
First, the concept of ‘vulnerable co-presence’, through its focus on intercorporeality (point of attention no.1), enables us to understand the hybrid team less as a ‘collection of individuals’ dispersed in multiple worksites (Endrissat and Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, 2021) than as a collective body that involves members in an embodied and sustainable way. Because they share a primordial co-presence through their vulnerable bodies, members are never completely isolated, giving them the constant possibility of feeling together as a ‘we’ (Osler, 2020). For instance, in the apparent absence of colleagues working from home, there remains a form of co-presence and belonging to a collective body, which remains directly accessible to both on-site and remote members by relying on their discrete, bodily sensations (e.g. the voice or smell of an ‘absent’ colleague). Acknowledging this shared embodiment thus helps to counter the individualizing inclination of hybrid settings by giving a renewed political sense to hybrid work collectives and the organization of actors’ co-presence in these contexts.
Second, considering the hybrid workforce through the lens of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ leads to emphasizing the temporality and processuality (point of attention no.2) of becoming co-present and vulnerable. The other is always potentially here, in my ‘field of presence’, as it is what matters to me in the moment that determines my experience of them, opening the way to feeling a strong sense of the collective beyond spatial boundaries. Drawing on this view, researchers and practitioners should, for instance, pay more attention to the temporality of social interactions in hybrid teams (e.g. at what moment in the project do we need to meet). Some of these interactions can serve as moments of recognition – across a variety of settings – during which actors intentionally acknowledge their ethical interconnectedness. Such reciprocal, embodied relationality thus forms the basis of plural and political action while also reinforcing the social ties of hybrid workers and working communities against precariousness.
Finally, examining hybrid work collectives through the lens of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ calls for considering their performative and political force (point of attention no.3). Such force stems from the ethical recognition of the shared vulnerability between members, which both affects and empowers them. In contrast to the paradigms of invulnerability and efficiency found in common descriptions of hybrid arrangements – it is by performing (i.e. enacting through repeated acts and behaviours) a ‘vulnerable co-presence’ – that groups can act politically both online and in-person. This conceptualization thus leads to repoliticize the hybrid workforce not only by emphasizing its collectiveness, but also by shedding light on the dynamics of recognition and resistance within hybrid teams. For instance, it leads to further consider forms of deprivation, exclusion and socio-economic inequalities in these settings (e.g. when there are many disparities between hybrid workers’ living situations). Therefore, the proposed framework encourages a more critical, reflexive exploration of hybrid work models and the inequalities they may foster. In the next section, I present how the notion of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ could also guide the practices of workers and managers in these conditions.
Offering a perceptual basis for developing and learning new skills to maintain strong social ties and work collectives in hybrid work arrangements
The second main implication of this conceptualization is to provide practitioners with a perceptual basis for imagining and learning skills to strengthen social ties and work collectives in hybrid arrangements. Indeed, new vulnerabilities such as the increased risk of social isolation (Ter Hoeven and Van Zoonen, 2015; Whittle and Mueller, 2009), a reduced or lost sense of community (Ajzen and Taskin, 2021), or siloed teams (Eurofound, 2023) requires the learning of new skills and competencies (Borg & Söderlund, 2017; Babapour Chafi et al., 2022; Eurofound, 2023). In response, I argue that drawing on the three points of attention linked to the notion of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ would enable workers and managers to revise their skillset towards more relationally sustainable hybrid models of working. In particular, by developing skills based on these points, they would be better able to ensure the maintenance of strong social relations while also fostering the conditions for feelings of ‘we-ness’ (Cunliffe, 2022; Osler, 2020) to emerge in hybrid working. In the following, I explain how each point of attention can lead to learning new working and managerial competencies.
Intercorporeal: towards developing a ‘bodyset’ for working and managing hybrid
Following this point of attention, practitioners would be more inclined to rely on their embodied perception and discrete sensations to relate to each other and maintain a strong sense of the collective across virtual, face-to-face, or blended settings. This shift in positioning leads me to frame this attitude as a ‘bodyset’ (linked to the body) in opposition to a mindset (linked to mental representations), which serves to equip practitioners with a new lens to consider the ‘vulnerable co-presence’ of others. For instance, line managers may find it difficult to find an equilibrium when managing members who are both teleworking and in the office. Drawing on this ‘bodyset’, they would become more attentive to the bodily expressions and non-verbal cues of hybrid workers (e.g. a particular tone or gaze) when they are seeking to create a sense of cohesion and engagement. This would be particularly useful during brainstorming sessions or team rituals that gather participants working in different settings, for example, by enabling managers to better identify opportunities for informal checking or to reactivate a sense of ‘vulnerable co-presence’.
Temporo-spatial: focusing on the temporality of co-presence when organizing hybrid work
Drawing on the ‘temporo-spatial’ facet of ‘vulnerable co-presence’, hybrid teams would pay less attention to the instances where they share a space (e.g. ‘presence days’ during which all employees are asked to come to the office) than when and how they share it. In particular, it leads practitioners to further rely on their embodied sense of others – in physically proximate or digitally mediated social encounters – to intentionally become more in sync with them. For instance, a new hire who has just joined a project in a hybrid mode would further rely on their bodily sensations of being together in time with other team members, for example, by sharing a certain work rhythm or the project’s timeline. The role of intentions is crucial in this process as hybrid workers can easily be overwhelmed by parallel temporalities, such as those of family members at home or videoconferencing software. In this sense, a ‘temporo-spatial’ orientation invites line managers to become more attentive to the quality and intensity of in-person moments instead of their quantity. They would also become more inclined to rely on their body and senses to align their intentions with those of others, for example, to establish lasting rapport, empathy and trust between members of a cross-functional project.
Ethico-political: adopting an empathetic and caring posture in hybrid working
By taking this point of attention seriously, hybrid workers and managers would be more inclined to consider the moral and ethical obligations linked to ‘vulnerable co-presence’. For instance, it incites line managers to develop an empathetic and caring posture towards the members of their teams. This might include making informal contact with them, being more cautious about burn-out and frequently assessing their morale and potential difficulties (e.g. in their professional activities or relationships). In becoming more aware of the vulnerability shared among team members, they would also be more supportive of care-oriented initiatives, such as creating a ‘hybrid support group’ or organizing mental health meetings in a blended format. An ‘ethico-political’ view also equips hybrid workers to better recognize the weak signals of difficult life situations among themselves and provide support to those who need it. Through better acknowledging their ethical bond, hybrid team members would become more skilled at ensuring that everyone feels supported and included. Organizational actions could include using asynchronous collaboration tools for different time zones, offering stipends for home improvements and reliable Internet, and creating well-being programmes for employees in psychological distress. Collectively, implementing these changes at different levels would help to make hybrid work arrangements more resilient and socially sustainable.
Methodological contributions and avenues for future research
Although these are not ‘new’ objects of research per se, co-presence and vulnerability are taking on new importance in this hybrid, post-pandemic world. Existing studies on more digitized or hybrid ways of working usually focus on one phenomenon or the other but rarely investigate them in tandem. By putting forward the notion of ‘vulnerable co-presence’, this conceptual article offers a number of contributions in terms of methodology. Future research could, for example, delve into the new forms or degrees of co-presence in hybrid work arrangements, focusing on how ‘intercorporeality’ (point of attention no.1) comes into play. In particular, drawing on this framework, organizational researchers could further analyze how hybrid workers’ senses of touch or smell – in both physical and digitally mediated interactions – participate in experiencing a shared co-presence and vulnerability. Although it may be challenging to collect such data solely online, the hybridization of work settings allows for interesting explorations, especially through ethnographic and auto-ethnographic note-taking.
Furthermore, by emphasizing the ‘temporo-spatial’ nature of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ (point of attention no.2), the advanced conceptualization provides an appropriate posture for researchers seeking to explore (inter-)subjective experiences in ‘multi-localized’ (Halford, 2005), hybrid ways of working. In particular, it enables them to see the circulation of hybrid workers across physical and virtual worksites as a dynamic movement rather than a linear succession. To examine how hybrid workers draw on their past, present or anticipated experiences of co-presence and shared vulnerability, researchers could use diary methods (e.g. by providing respondents with dated online notebooks to check and compare the (a)synchronization between their respective narratives). Adopting a ‘temporo-spatial’ posture could also inform future research into the creative ways used by hybrid workers to navigate feelings of absence, passivity or invisibility. For instance, by inspecting how team members can intentionally make themselves co-present to each other in specific moments (e.g. exploring which material and virtual means they use, following what temporality or rhythms).
Emerging work and organization studies have engaged with vulnerability and how it is collectively experienced in virtual contexts (Jeffrey and Thorpe, 2024). While the study by Taskin et al. (2023) sheds light on the relationship between co-presence, psychological health and caring relations in ‘enforced teleworking’, this article offers to complement their insights by focusing on the source of care – a sense of mutual vulnerability – and its ethico-political implications (point of attention no.3). This aspect of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ invites scholars to orient their research practices in two main ways. First, it fosters a more ‘care-ful’ (Cunliffe, 2022) approach to respondents in hybrid working conditions by highlighting the role of shared emotions between researchers and respondents despite reduced face-to-face interaction (which supposedly facilitates ethical connection). Second, future empirical research could pay more attention to how ‘politics of recognition’, power dynamics and social structures frame hybrid workers’ experiences of co-presence and vulnerability, for example, by investigating the distribution of precarity among members of a hybrid team and how it is politically structured. Although the bulk of studies on hybrid working focuses on issues related to operational efficiency, technology or effective communication, conceptualizing ‘vulnerable co-presence’ paves the way for more engaged organizational scholarship into the politico-socio-economic realities of hybrid workers, thus joining other critical perspectives on distributed arrangements (Hafermalz, 2021). In Table 1, I summarize the various implications of this notion for the research and practice of hybrid work arrangements, based on the structure of this last section.
Implications of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ for the research and practice of hybrid work arrangements (HWA).
Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic represents an accelerating moment towards hybrid ways of working, learning, protesting, celebrating, mourning and interacting in general. In this conceptual article, I have sought to recast the interplay of co-presence and vulnerability and, in doing so, to develop a normative argument for making hybrid organizational contexts more relationally sustainable. Yet, the phenomenological conception of ‘vulnerable co-presence’ could also be researched and applied in non-work areas of life and society. Merleau-Ponty and Butler, each in their own way, invite us to ‘re-learn’ how to see and organize our togetherness with others in the world by revitalizing the ‘co-’ (as being vulnerable with another) of co-presence. Drawing on their ontological views, I have outlined three points of attention that, I argue, could enable to repoliticize the hybrid workforce and inform better management of co-presence and vulnerability in hybrid work settings. In light of how the new vulnerabilities affect countless people beyond the walls of their offices, in what some have called an ‘epidemic of loneliness’, it also seems crucial that we, as organizational researchers, engage more with the ‘ethical underpinnings and values guiding our scholarly practice’ (Delmestri, 2023) to promote ‘a good life’ (Butler, 2012) and a more inclusive society.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the convenors and participants of the 2021 EGOS sub-theme on Processual Approaches to Space in Organizations, the LOST (Leuphana Organization & Social Transformation) group, and my colleagues at Dauphine Recherches en Management (Université Paris-Dauphine – PSL). In particular, my warmest thanks to Boukje Cnossen for their precious help on earlier versions of this work, Jeremy Aroles, Viviane Sergi, Amelie Gabriagues, Lucie Cortambert, Romain Vacquier and Nour Kanaan. I also wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. My sincere gratitude goes to the Guest Editors of this special issue on Experiencing communality and togetherness at work, especially Thijs Willems, for their guidance and availability throughout the review process.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
