The pandemic-inspired shift to remote and hybrid working has accelerated changes already underway within the professional service firm (PSF) sector. Taken together, these changes will potentially undermine some foundational assumptions about PSFs. Given the impact these firms have on the functioning of institutions more generally (Suddaby and Viale, 2011), these changes will likely have far-reaching implications. The pandemic, therefore, provides scholars with a remarkable opportunity to study this highly significant sector as its firms, and the professionals who work within them, struggle to make sense of their new working world.

For professional service firms, the Covid crisis provoked a sudden, wholesale, and initially temporary shift to remote working. Overnight, as firms went into lockdown, previously unthinkable changes became unavoidable, and then routinised. As the pandemic persisted, many law, accounting, consulting firms, and investment banks announced plans to institutionalise their remote working ‘experiment’. In the UK, for example, accounting firm KPMG is converting its London offices into meeting rooms. Meanwhile, law firm Linklaters will allow staff to work away from their office 50 per cent of the time, and staff at investment managers Schroeders will be able to work from home indefinitely. Consulting firms have quickly positioned themselves as experts in remote working, arguing that they pioneered this ‘work anywhere’ model and are, therefore, ideally placed to advise clients on how to make the switch.

For professional service firms the short-term benefits of hybrid working are relatively easy to quantify. PSFs’ expensive city-centre real estate costs are reduced as the cost burden is transferred to employees. Meanwhile, employees’ productive capacity increases as commuting hours are converted to billable hours. In exploiting short-term financial gains, PSFs emphasise the benefits to employees of hybrid working in terms of increased flexibility. This is problematic. As Mazmanian et al. (2013) explain, for professionals the ‘work anywhere’ promise quickly translates into the ‘work everywhere’ problem. Professionals are given increased autonomy about where they work, but yield control over when they work, with the attendant problems of overwork and alienation. For PSFs the cost savings of remote working are significant and immediately calculable. The longer-term costs will also be significant, though less easy to quantify.

Indeed for professional service firms, and the people who work with them, the shift to hybrid working will have numerous unintended consequences. It is simply accelerating and exacerbating changes already underway. As discussed below, when taken together, these changes constitute a profound challenge to some established ‘truths’ within PSF theory.

受大流行启发的向远程和混合工作的转变加速了专业服务公司 (PSF) 部门内已经发生的变化。总之，这些变化可能会破坏一些关于 PSF 的基本假设。鉴于这些公司对更广泛的机构运作的影响（Suddaby 和 Viale，2011 年），这些变化可能会产生深远的影响。因此，大流行为学者提供了一个绝佳的机会来研究这个非常重要的行业，因为它的公司以及在其中工作的专业人士都在努力理解他们的新工作世界。

对于专业服务公司来说，Covid 危机引发了突然的、大规模的、最初是暂时的远程工作转移。一夜之间，随着公司进入封锁状态，以前无法想象的变化变得不可避免，然后常规化。随着大流行的持续，许多法律、会计、咨询公司和投资银行宣布了将其远程工作“实验”制度化的计划。例如，在英国，毕马威会计师事务所正在将其伦敦办事处改建为会议室。与此同时，年利达律师事务所将允许员工 50% 的时间在办公室之外工作，而投资管理公司施罗德的员工将能够无限期地在家工作。咨询公司迅速将自己定位为远程工作专家，认为他们开创了这种“随处工作”模式，因此，

对于专业服务公司来说，混合工作的短期收益相对容易量化。随着成本负担转移到员工身上，PSF 昂贵的市中心房地产成本降低了。同时，员工的生产能力随着通勤时间转换为计费时间而增加。在利用短期财务收益时，PSF 强调混合工作的员工在增加灵活性方面的好处。这是有问题的。正如马兹曼尼安等人。( 2013 ) 解释说，对于专业人士来说，“随处工作”的承诺很快就会转化为“随处工作”的问题。专业人士给出了关于提高自主 哪里 他们的工作，但产量控制 在 他们工作，伴随着过度工作和疏远的问题。对于 PSF 而言，远程工作的成本节约意义重大且可立即计算。长期成本也将很大，但不太容易量化。

事实上，对于专业服务公司以及与他们一起工作的人来说，向混合工作的转变会产生许多意想不到的后果。它只是在加速和加剧已经发生的变化。正如下面所讨论的，这些变化综合起来对 PSF 理论中的某些既定“真理”构成了深刻挑战。