I think the fundamental issue is that there is a distribution: 1. “the coaster”: won’t do anything on their own initiative and needs to have a manager to get anything done 2. “the clock in, clock out”: they do the job for a full workday and don’t need supervision but they don’t go above and beyond 3. “the always on”: loves what they do and is always working and contributing. They may work weird hours like really early in the morning or really late at night. They use the saved commute time as an opportunity to get started earlier or work later

If your firm’s hiring process has inadvertently optimized for #1 then WFH will not work. If the firm has managed to find enough #3, then RTO will damage company productivity.

Ironically, the fact that Apple was able to make the migration from PowerPC to Intel back in the day was because they gave a #3 type employee a special exemption to WFH.

One of the things remote-first companies are going to need to do is to migrate from interviews that are centered around “what you know” to “show me you can get stuff done”