Tech Workers and Work from Home: A Sociological Understanding of Control and Modulation

The Covid 19 pandemic brought a change in work culture with organizations worldwide introducing work from home opportunity for their workers. Traditional way of commuting to office for workers were suspended leading to people working from anywhere they preferred. Physical checking into the offices were substituted by digital log-in. This shift raised important questions regarding the power dynamics that existed in an organization. The current situation thus can be considered paradoxical where on the one hand individual are being freed from being physically confined to a particular space and work, and on the other hand, they are being monitored now more than ever through digital means. A paradigm shift in social relationship is observed with the earlier formal relationships among “colleagues” and “co-workers” being replaced by a relationship between human and machine. Existing studies have focused mainly on the organizational aspects and control of remote work and thus embarking on a theorization of a system of surveillance becoming a part of the workplace. The focus here is on understanding the perspective of work from home presenting as both liberating and controlling and thus bringing a paradigm shift in existing social relationships. Drawing on the theoretical departure of Deleuze and Guattari which states that the current process of capitalism and globalization thrives on maximum control through constant monitoring of workplaces, markets or others, this paper asks major question- does the surveillance mechanism aim for a strong, disciplined body of workforce or it’s main purpose is maximizing profit by providing the individual workers the illusion of choices to work irrespective of any specific time or place. The work will conclude with key concepts such as fluidity of time, liberated yet controlled body, measurable and modulated through how much time they work and being made available whenever needed for the new capitalist market.