I ghosted the last Google recruiter I talked to because they wouldn't say "full-time remote" and spent a good amount of time qualifying it.

This is, in my experience, not true. "Most" is a very strong qualifier here.

I spoke to an acquaintance at Google last week and they said they have to report to office at least 3 days in a week.

Having said that - and I support working fully remote - I don't see how that's a solution to this problem. As others have said, if the company is lacking direction, it has to come from higher management. It can come from engineers or middle-management as well, but you'd be lucky if that happens.

I run a remote only team, I agree with this and think the trade off is worth it. I get the productivity I’ve always expected. We have deadlines and we meet them on average. That my engineers may spread 6 hours work over a 14 hour period isn’t really my concern.

Then again we do a ton of live share “office” coding and pair programming. So we still have a similar environment to an office. But I think my team is overall happier than if they had to come in 8 hours a day.

I do my damn best to ensure that I am no more productive in the office than I am at home :)

You can't use the stick to make people more productive/less lazy, unless you're watching them 8hrs a day 5 days a week.

Speak for yourself. Anecdotally, as an employee who prefers the office and goes in most days a week even though I don't have to, I am waaaaaay more productive at home. Fewer distractions, no random noises and people talking all around you, deliveries being dropped off all the time, etc. And a more powerful machine, better monitor, etc.

The office loses money on me whenever I go in. Sure, the boss sees me more, but it's a lot less efficient when I'm constantly talking to people around me (which I enjoy, and is why I go in) but my actual work only gets done in the quiet moments in between, which are much rarer at the office than at home.

Shrug. People are different.

I have yet to meet an office-preferer who doesn't slack off a lot at the office.

In the office I can make appearances and sleepwalk through a bunch of meetings and I look productive.

At home, I actually have to produce something measurable and not just pleasant social interactions in meetings and on coffee breaks.

I think the issue is that managers want to "see" their employees "working". And by "working" I mean being seen at their desk, in meetings, or at the whiteboard. It's harder for them to judge by the quality of work because they don't have that expertise.

How do you measure this?