Remote work is nothing new. It has been present since the big development of computers, cameras and broadband internet in the early '90s. Working out of the office, in the comfort of your home was a new benefit that companies offered to potential employees.
Depending on the industry, remote work was used more or less. Some specific conditions also needed to be met so an employee can finish all required work from home.
IT is a relatively new industry that could have utilized remote work 100%, but it didn’t. Why? Like all employers, companies in IT believe that keeping their eye on the employees will have a positive impact on performance and make them work harder and faster. Companies offer remote work as an option and a benefit, but employees should be in the office most of the working week.
WFH - the perspective
If you ask employees in IT, almost all of them will say that working from home is the best option. There is no need to commute from home to work or to waste time picking the right outfit. :)
If you ask the employers, the most important parameter is performance - can employees work from home at the same level as they would from the office? Psychologists would say that too much time apart from the team and the community will eventually kill the team spirit. Nothing can replace face2face communication, not even video calls on a daily basis.
You could argue for both sides with pretty good arguments and still end up, right where you started.
Working from home vs. working from the office
However, when things get tough, all arguments are irrelevant. This modern plague showed us, in a two-year experiment, that in IT, we can all work from home all the time.
But can we?
People love working from home because it offers a feeling of freedom that you don’t have in the office, and it looks like you are your own boss. If working from home becomes a must and you have no office to come to, it would become an obligation as well, right?
With technological progress, remote work is going to be more present, but only time will tell if this new trend is going to stick or it will be just a passing thing.