Exploring the Employer–Employee Relationship: A Management Versus Employee Perspective of the Vicissitudes in the Virtual Workplace

Abstract

Employee–employer disputes have a long history. Being on different sides of the same coin, they have their own opinions and perspectives. These differences in narratives, viewpoints and disagreements have widened due to the sudden shift to a virtual workplace setting owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. The sudden transformation has rendered many jobless, whereas many others have faced challenges with teleworking. This article thus aims to explore the differing viewpoints of the teleworking employees and their managerial counterparts from various accounting, e-commerce and information technology (IT) sector firms, using a qualitative phenomenological methodology based on the abduction approach. Managers in India mostly follow a paternalistic managerial style to retain control and authority, which would dissolve in telework. The findings show the differences in managerial and employee perspectives regarding the major restructuring of the human resource (HR) practices, including the appraisal mechanism, work environment, social isolation, work–life (im)balance, technological difficulties, workplace monitoring, retrenchment and work contracts. We conclude that the virtual workspaces including the hybrid model of work, remote work with geographical requirements and co-working spaces, would be the future of Indian white-collared workers.