I have managed remote employees for years and while I still think it's a good tool in the box for providing a healthy and happy workplace, as well as recruiting/retaining talent in situations where you couldn't otherwise, I've grown increasingly jaded about the idea of functional, fully-remote organizations.

The trust issue referenced in this article is one element but there are many others:

- Many people don't handle the level of autonomy well, or don't stay motivated in isolation - Harder to engage a remote employee in company culture and values - There is a big difference between remote in the same time zone/country and remote on the other side of the world - Management invariably has less control over a remote employee and less ability to command their immediate attention

I think comparing "remote work" with "not remote work" is a massive oversimplification of the issue that does everyone a disservice. There is the group of remote contractors you've never met, there's the team of fulltime employees that live within a few hours' flight of each other and meet several times a year, there's the guy who works in the office 3 days a week and at home from 2. So what are we really talking about? Generalities are not productive.

The dark spectres hovering over the head of remote work are that remote employees often end up being less productive and less available when you really need them.

For certain types of work and certain types of people these issues are more or less pronounced... this is not a black and white thing. But I am pretty sure we will never see a future where everyone is a fully remote worker.