Just like home? Temporal and moral coordination of everyday life in times of hybrid work

Hybrid work has gained renewed attention post-COVID-19, prompting shifts in how we practice work and use digital technologies to both integrate and separate work and home in time and space. While often presented as flexible and individualized, hybrid work is deeply embedded in daily routines in the home and in collective rhythms. This paper examines how hybrid worker communities in Denmark reconfigure these rhythms and coordinate activities across the domains of work and home life. Drawing on social practice theory, Southerton's concepts of collective rhythms, and Mary Douglas’ notion of moral coordination, we analyze in-depth interviews with hybrid workers from IT, knowledge and care sectors. We show how hybrid work contributes to a de-institutionalization of collective rhythms, loosening but not displacing the traditional 8–16 workday, which continues to function as a ‘ground beat’ in everyday life. This shift creates both new flexibility and new demands for coordination across domains, requiring workers to engage in ongoing temporal and moral negotiations. Digital tools play a central role in this coordination, offering new flexibility but also risks, including new forms of exposure. We argue that hybrid work does not dissolve the boundaries between work and home but reconfigures them through evolving practices of coordination. In doing so, it reshapes how time, visibility, and care are coordinated in post-pandemic everyday life.