How we work and get more effective at working is more of an issue than something being inherently wrong with working remote, hybrid, or in person.
I’ve worked remote for a very long time including cycles in and out of it.
Some remote work principles come and go and others remain mandatory but are often ignored.
Primarily, people are not as good communicators as they imagine themselves to be and don’t dedicate a great deal of effort to improving constantly. This is in person, online and remote.
Underdeveloped communication skills play themselves out through attempting to over communicate for hybrid work but the core competency is not where it needs to be. One test is if someone can’t explain a slide deck using only a voice call, do they know the material at all?
Doing hybrid/distributed work well requires a clean slate in terms of space design both at office and home, and technology that elevates communication to the point where it’s invisible. Since that’s rare, working with what’s in place at a company and will take work if both parties to be willing to do it.
Employees also have to realize a pandemic created many of the nascent remote/hybrid practices and there is a lot of room for improvement.
Since most places will never invest or obsess enough over both deputizing and empowering their folks to have an unstoppable environment both at home and work, most are doomed to fail at it.
Generally, startups work at a quicker pace from the very start at one table, until enough is in place to start leaving the building and bring back insights. Some ideas will not need this as a must but also not be their full potential.
Startups are more than features and software development ceremony. In many cases it’s establishing a new way tech will work for and care for users.
Edit: grammar and clarity.