I feel like people will look at COVID-19's remote working situation as a failure and "proof that remote working doesn't work".
The holes in that argument are incredibly obvious to anyone here I think, but I really feel like the powers that be, and the people who like the office status-quo will take any argument and parrot it to ensure that nothing changes.
I know that's a pessimistic outlook but based on how people tend to be regarding open-office landscapes I think it's a realistic situation.
I'm one of the supremely fortunate people to be both childless and having a personal office at home, for me remote work is without a doubt more productive, however that's personal productivity vs team productivity. I have no idea what my colleagues are working on. Communication is one of the hardest problems that people are trying to solve and poorly managed companies use "collaboration" (IE; disrupting people or overhearing things) as a venue to avoid tackling the real communication issue.
The other thing is the majority of people at home are not set up like me, they have little humans that are distracting and curious nature. Or no dedicated space to actually focus.
Two anecdotes: My girlfriend is working from home using the kitchen table and one of my external monitors with her Mac, the ergonomics are horrible and her job is to play video games all day.. those video games are restricted IP so they can't be copied (or even if they could, they wouldn't run) on her mac.. so she plays video games over RDP+VPN which is obviously less productive than being at work with her high powered machine.
The other is my Mother. Who literally has no dining table or desk in the whole house, she works from the couch- I have no idea how productive she is but it certainly can't be as much as the office.
The holes in that argument are incredibly obvious to anyone here I think, but I really feel like the powers that be, and the people who like the office status-quo will take any argument and parrot it to ensure that nothing changes.
I know that's a pessimistic outlook but based on how people tend to be regarding open-office landscapes I think it's a realistic situation.
I'm one of the supremely fortunate people to be both childless and having a personal office at home, for me remote work is without a doubt more productive, however that's personal productivity vs team productivity. I have no idea what my colleagues are working on. Communication is one of the hardest problems that people are trying to solve and poorly managed companies use "collaboration" (IE; disrupting people or overhearing things) as a venue to avoid tackling the real communication issue.
The other thing is the majority of people at home are not set up like me, they have little humans that are distracting and curious nature. Or no dedicated space to actually focus.
Two anecdotes: My girlfriend is working from home using the kitchen table and one of my external monitors with her Mac, the ergonomics are horrible and her job is to play video games all day.. those video games are restricted IP so they can't be copied (or even if they could, they wouldn't run) on her mac.. so she plays video games over RDP+VPN which is obviously less productive than being at work with her high powered machine.
The other is my Mother. Who literally has no dining table or desk in the whole house, she works from the couch- I have no idea how productive she is but it certainly can't be as much as the office.