Everyone seems to forget the most important factor in this whole debate: we aren't in a "mass social experiment in working from home", we're in a "mass social experiment in working in isolation during a pandemic".
They're very much not the same thing, for a whole host of reasons.
Just a few examples of how they differ:
* higher stress from living through a pandemic (and everything around it) gives us reason to set ourselves up to reduce stress in ways that normally might be unnecessary.
* having no alternative to working from home makes it easier to ignore the downsides, because it's not a downside when there's no alternative without it
* childcare / care responsibilities means many of our home lives are totally different right now from normal, so not even comparable to normal
* consistent working from home by everyone (on a given team) tends to be more inclusive because ignoring remote people means ignoring everyone so we work hard not to do it. It's much easier to accidentally get lazy about ensuring inclusivity when at least some people are in the office (and I've seen this first-hand pre-COVID, never maliciously).
* no alternative for many employers means they accept any (if any) productivity losses of work from home because it is that or else lose all productivity (which is obviously worse for business)
To be clear, I'm not arguing remote work will/won't stick in the future. I'm just arguing that nearly all of this debate is moot right now, because most people are basing it on an "experiment" with far too many variables different from the reality of remote work during a normal world.
Thanks for mentioning this point. We are living in an exceptionally constraining time, and while it does give some insights about what is possible it also allows us to ignore much about what we already know about the dynamics of working from office vs. remote work.
The decisions to become fully remote, or to go back to working from office with hybrid options will be made at a high level within companies - and which is better for the company is really the question. I speculate most go hybrid and it will just be time until there is a quorum of work from office people.
Before the pandemic, many people who could have and perhaps even wanted to work from home didn't because that would mean they are missing something at work. Imagine scenarios where people who are working in office are having a virtual conference with a remote employee, then when the call is hung up they don't stop talking or working on the problem. Decisions or tweaks are made in office after the official meeting and remote workers have less say unless they have a hell of a backbone.
One of our better developers committed suicide over the summer. He told me days earlier that work from home was not for him and that he missed going out after work. We planned an outdoor outing for the next week but he was gone by then. One time when I went into office over the summer another co-worker was there, in tears, and said "I'm not a homebody". Personally, I'm handling it a little better and didn't realize how bad it is for some, but even I'd surely quit if I'm not allowed to go into office if this ends. I'll solve my problem with working from home by getting a different job. How many employees will companies lose if they go fully remote over having a hybrid option?
My guess is that remote only companies and work from office only companies will lose more headcount than hybrid; therefore, hybrid is likely the goto. A bunch of workers working in office have a competitive advantage over remote workers; therefor, you go to work to compete. End result is a hybrid model that leans heavily towards work from office.
I'm a 99% of success is showing up kind of person and I really liked it when I worked 9-6pm in office, nobody bugged me when I was working, nobody bugged me after hours. Now people who are Away all day bug me at 7pm and passive aggressively ask "Are you working today?" I want to respond "Yeah, I worked 10 hours today, bozo! What about you?" Don't get me started on the pings, ping ping ping ping. People used to see you are working and give you time but now they just ping to their hearts content and even being in DND does not stop them from @'ing you several times in a room full of 50 people.
Just a few examples of how they differ:
* higher stress from living through a pandemic (and everything around it) gives us reason to set ourselves up to reduce stress in ways that normally might be unnecessary.
* having no alternative to working from home makes it easier to ignore the downsides, because it's not a downside when there's no alternative without it
* childcare / care responsibilities means many of our home lives are totally different right now from normal, so not even comparable to normal
* consistent working from home by everyone (on a given team) tends to be more inclusive because ignoring remote people means ignoring everyone so we work hard not to do it. It's much easier to accidentally get lazy about ensuring inclusivity when at least some people are in the office (and I've seen this first-hand pre-COVID, never maliciously).
* no alternative for many employers means they accept any (if any) productivity losses of work from home because it is that or else lose all productivity (which is obviously worse for business)
To be clear, I'm not arguing remote work will/won't stick in the future. I'm just arguing that nearly all of this debate is moot right now, because most people are basing it on an "experiment" with far too many variables different from the reality of remote work during a normal world.