telework is a total scam. People in the office are doing the actual work. Teleworkers are just creating more work for the people in the office. Get rid of them.
If the company got along fine with these employees working from home for 2-3 years …
Completely depends on the industry, companies and workers.
Loads of research and consulting types, for example, have been working fully remotely for decades. They are adults and highly productive.
I was one of the first to see the value of at least one day a week in the office (we are talking July 2020) just to stay connected with my co-workers.
In January, we got asked to do three which I thought was kind of stupid, but I went along with it because I understand some people just won't do much work from home and they can't or won't separate the two.
Last month, we got a new wokester CEO who asked for five days a week on site. This was stupid for two reasons (1)we reduced cube space at my office last year as work from home was supposed to be permanent and (2)I need two days to work from home just to get caught up on all the workload. I'm 67 and don't have the energy for 12 hours a day, five days a week. Yeah, I know it only 10, but the commute adds two hours and accomplishes nothing.
I told them I could give them the three days that I agreed to or I could retire. Take you pick.
Well, guess what? They backed off. A couple of our people retired when they asked for three days a week. They can't even get people to even show up for interviews to replace them.
Our HR guy (a decent old school guy who just has to carry water for the CEO) tried to talk me into committing to the end of the year. I told him maybe until the end of August if the new CEO doesn't come up with any more stupid demands.
Our reduced cube space is only about 40% full and the office that I was supposed to share remains private. Our HR guy thanked me for giving in as much as I did. They simply can't immediately replace the other 60% or so who wouldn't even agree to 1 to 3 days. That's the reality.
Not always true. A software developer buddy will never go back to the office because he can get so much more code written at home where he isn’t constantly interrupted.
And I haven’t been out of the workforce so long thst I clearly remember the “Wally” types who sat in a cubicle and screwed around most of the time and got damn near nothing done. If they were a protected class, they knew they could get away with it and not be fired.