Yes, there are clear benefits to working in person. If one can’t see that, I’d say that person has social issues. I could go on…

BUT, WFH is clearly a better solution all in all. Better for employee mental health, better for the environment, all that and more.

My company (software dev) seems to be navigating this well. We’re leaning heavily on hiring people local to our remaining office. One person is required to come in, Tuesday-Thursday, and that’s what we hired them for, a warm body in the office to assist. For the work I do, I need someone around to accept deliveries and help around.

While no one else is mandated to come in, it’s nice that they can. Teams meet up, get to know each other, work together briefly, etc., good for morale. We’re social animals, we benefit by socializing. This should be obvious, but lemmy tells me otherwise.

One time I was hanging around the office, wanted to meet a user to fix their SSD. Couple of other folks were there, no one on my team. Shooting the bull with the CSR manager I learned a useful thing I didn’t know! Couple of devs sitting in front of me were talking about a thing my team was confused about. “Hold up! So what’s the deal with that?” Wouldn’t have thought to ask them otherwise. Talking to another guy I became aware of some new tech I didn’t know about.

Picture this: I have two people wanting me to help them, both asks being equal. One I know personally, the other I’ve only seen on Zoom. First guy came to my wedding, the other I haven’t seen since I onboarded them. Who you think I’m helping first?

Story I related to senior management, including the CEO, while having dinner one night. Poster on reddit claimed to be a tech recruiter. This guy kept a list of local companies mandating RTO. He went after them on LinkedIn for remote work, “Like shooting fish in a barrel.” LOL, half our staff, the best half, would walk if RTO was mandated.