I don't think a May 2021 article – before widespread vaccination even made return-to-office policies possible, and before the tech layoffs – is the best starting point.
Okay, calling CEOs that demand a return "bad" and "fearful" is a provocative take, but the article doesn't back up these assumptions. Much less does it actually explain the reason why bad, and only bad, CEOs "fear" remote work.
With, for example, Apple enacting RTO, one has to wonder whether the author would go so far as to say that Tim Cook is a "bad" CEO who "fears" remote work.
In the article the author does call out not doing research or at least cognitive bias toward research that agrees with RTO. They provide examples like Citrix who have been doing this for years. I would agree that a CEO who doesn't look at all the research and just does what Apple and Amazon do because they should have "done the research" is a bad CEO. Especially if the reason the big companies did it was to paint what would otherwise be layoffs in a way that they don't have to disclose to shareholders. Of course these "bad" CEOs may be doing this too. That just makes them bad to employees which is kind of a unspoken truth...
My employer and many others started RTO in July 2020 with a playbook from a White House lead "return to work" committee. I wouldn't say it was made possible by vaccination. Many CEOs absolutely are fearful of the new environment created by WFH.
I can't really agree with the idea that a vaccine made return to office "possible". I was only sent home (mandatory WFH in my case) because the local government told my employer there was the possibility of liability if they had me keep coming in the office. At this point, plenty of people were already getting sick and some were dying. That didn't motivate my employer to close their offices. The government and legal counsel did.
We still had country wide lockdown just a few months after a +90% population wide vaccine uptake in my home country.
Omicron opened up society, not a single other pandemic measure and that includes masks.
On another note.
With EU countries being so loud about green transitions I would have thought encouraging WFH would have enormous environmental benefits.
There is a plethora of green fees on every single transportation fuel source that we have come to depend on.
Whats greener than not clogging up the roads at all ?
Wonder why EU simply does not ban mandatory in office attendance for work that can be done from home, unless you can show that it is detrimental.
WFH school teachers for example. Remote learning for children was a catastrophe.
I wondered the same thing, and I assume the key detail is "can be done from home", because implementation, monitoring and enforcement of something like this could be pretty harmful for businesses and employees. Imagine having to document why you need your employees in the office for certain types of meetings, but not others.
Okay, calling CEOs that demand a return "bad" and "fearful" is a provocative take, but the article doesn't back up these assumptions. Much less does it actually explain the reason why bad, and only bad, CEOs "fear" remote work.
With, for example, Apple enacting RTO, one has to wonder whether the author would go so far as to say that Tim Cook is a "bad" CEO who "fears" remote work.