[MinorityRepublican]

My son-in-law’s employer (a big outfit, you’d recognize the name) is cutting their office space by 50% in favor of work at home based on the experience of 2020.

Depends on the nature of the work. If it's a call center or some sort, I can see why you would want to cut office space. But there are a lot of jobs where it depends on interaction with your fellow co-workers and you just can't duplicate that kind of experience over Zoom.

[nascarnation]

Surprisingly it’s engineering and manufacturing.
I don’t have a clue how they do it these days.

[kiryandil]

and you just can't duplicate that kind of experience over Zoom

At least they've removed the danger of seeing Jeffrey Toobin's junk from Zoom...

[freedumb2003]

Actually you can duplicate almost any collaberation using Zoom or Teams or for the moment Skype.

BUT it takes a lot longer than walking over to Joe’s cubicle and asking “can you walk me through that setp sequence?” or shoulder hop Mary while she reprodruces that bug.

Companies have to figure on losing productivity, maybe as much as 30%

[usconservative]

But there are a lot of jobs where it depends on interaction with your fellow co-workers and you just can't duplicate that kind of experience over Zoom.

I'm in a Senior Engineer role for a very large bank. Zoom is BANNED because of the initial security concerns with using it and the fact that it doesn't really let us collaborate, white-board, etc.. We use Microsoft Teams and a whiteboarding app and have found it works very well for us. Even for someone like me who still relishes getting a conference room with a large whiteboard/whiteboarding wall and drawing complex things out.

Solutions are out there, just have to look.