I have posted this on Reddit (askeconomics) a while back but got no good replies. Copying it here because I don't want to send traffic to Reddit.
What do you think?
I see a big push to take employees back to the office. I personally don't mind either working remote or in the office, but I think big companies tend to think rationally in terms of cost/benefit and I haven't seen a convincing explanation yet of why they are so keen to have everyone back.
If remote work was just as productive as in-person, a remote-only company could use it to be more efficient than their work-in-office competitors, so I assume there's no conclusive evidence that this is the case. But I haven't seen conclusive evidence of the contrary either, and I think employers would have good reason to trumpet any findings at least internally to their employees ("we've seen KPI so-and-so drop with everyone working from home" or "project X was severely delayed by lack of in-person coordination" wouldn't make everyone happy to return in presence, but at least it would make a good argument for a manager to explain to their team)
Instead, all I keep hearing is inspirational wish-wash like "we value the power of working together". Which is fine, but why are we valuing it more than the cost of office space?
On the side of employees, I often see arguments like "these companies made a big investment in offices and now they don't want to look stupid by leaving them empty". But all these large companies have spent billions to acquire smaller companies/products and dropped them without a second thought. I can't believe the same companies would now be so sentimentally attached to office buildings if it made any economic sense to close them.
That's just super relative.
All my active friendships are 90% online and many of those people I very deeply care about. We meet every now and then, on vacations or for special occasions, and have a really amazing time. But we also have a really good time doing online activities together, keeping in touch more or less daily via messages and actively sharing our lives with each other.
On the other hand, othering is very much a thing that happens in person and feels a lot worse when it does happen in person. When every day you see 2-3 colleagues acting differently with you than amongs themselves or with others.
Working from home it is a lot easier to be selective with people you interact beyond the work stuff and avoid negative interactions, or interactions that drain your social batteries.