IT is easier when everyone is in the same place - for example, fixing a person’s work laptop or updating software. Workers compensation is easier to manage, for example if someone is injured on the job. Finally, as much as the knowledge class hates butts-in-seats as a metric for performance, it is easier to tell “how” your employees are doing when you see them every day. Especially when you want to check if someone is burning out.
In my view, both sides of the RTO divide have failed to adequately acknowledge the pitfalls of their own position, which has led to this topic being unnecessarily polarized.
If managers are making time to interact enough with their employees day to day to actually assess burnout, then they can make the time to have zoom meetings with their team. Its no different. Funny you cite IT when that line of work especially is basically 50% remote work if not more of just controlling a users device remotely to fix software issues. Hardware issues you could just mail out/in gear to one site. Probably a whole lot cheaper than having a dedicated IT department in each and every office you have around the globe.
In my view, both sides of the RTO divide have failed to adequately acknowledge the pitfalls of their own position, which has led to this topic being unnecessarily polarized.