Exploring work-related cosmology events: lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose The present study examines personal accounts of disruptions and adaptations in the work lives of individuals who were required to work from home during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Our objective was to better understand how individuals respond to rapid, unanticipated changes in their work conditions. Design/methodology/approach Our qualitative study reflects in-depth interviews with 56 individuals to investigate how they were thinking, feeling and behaving in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings Our results suggest that individuals engaged in sensemaking to adapt to remote work and reacted in two ways: backward-focused and filled with nostalgia for a past that might never re-emerge, or forward-focused and filled with anticipation to build a new way of work. Practical implications Understanding employees’ responses to a major disruption provides guidance for how to support and lead them back to stability. Building flexibility into organizational structures, as well as establishing more robust and personalized support mechanisms, may enable more adaptive and resilient coping in the future. Originality/value We contend that the rapid shift to working from home represents a pervasive cosmology event – an abrupt crisis that challenges our assumptions about what is normal. Studying the responses to such an event provides insight into how people make sense of disruptions to their working lives, determine how to react and act to re-establish order.