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 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 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.

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 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.

How do you measure this?