I think this is what a lot of people here miss. Yes many people can be productive from home, but a few are not and I could see them ruining it for everyone on some teams. If you say ‘just fire them’ you either work for a terrible company or have never been a manager. It doesn’t work like that, for good reason.
The other one I think a lot of people miss is training. I’m not worried about my senior engineers, I’m worried about my junior engineers. The juniors specifically complain about seniors not being around to train them and I worry about their career development. Obviously it depends on the role/type of work/etc, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect some time in the office for senior positions that are responsible for training others. My junior staff shows up to the office voluntarily every day because they see a lot of value in it in terms of technical growth.
And before you say they can just call/message. Sure, but they won’t. Even in the office I have to go up to junior staff and only then do I get the ‘well while you’re here’. I know there’s a lot of shit managers and shit companies out there but I think blanket saying ’ any form of any level of in office work is tyranny!!!1!’ is really oversimplifying things. Also, not everyone writes code for a living, you’re in a bubble. I’ll now accept all your hate