Prior to the COVID lockdowns, remote working (including Work-From-Home) was very sector and role specific. In many cases, firms didn’t have the infrastructure to enable remote employees working full-time. In a lot of cases, managers were ill-equipped to properly manage remote employees, so it was easier to have team members in the office, or at least in an office if the employee was based remotely for operational needs.

This all changed abruptly as we faced the enforced lockdowns starting in 2020 to enable employee isolation (“bubbles”) and a semblance of business continuity. White-collar workers were outfitted with the tools necessary to work from home – laptops, broadband connections, monitors, work desks, and even chairs – duplicating their in-office setups. The back-office infrastructure was built out to support this remote workforce. Managers had to find ways to manage and cope with their remote teams. We learnt to have Zoom meetings with colleagues, customers, and suppliers. Given the extraordinary situation, most coped with this new business model very well.

Of course, this new normal didn’t suit everyone. Factory workers couldn’t work remotely. They masked up and continued to go to work. Not everyone had space in their homes to set up a workspace, or they lived in shared homes where there wasn’t enough spare space for everyone to work. Video calls didn’t suit in many situations. Many customers struggled with remote interaction. The impact of telemedicine was limited where patients were too used to in-person consultations. The edges were fraying, but there was enough goodwill to keep things going in this temporary regime.

Firms and individuals also learned how to cheat the system and work around the restrictions. Enforcement was quite a light touch, relying on whistleblowers dobbing in their neighbours rather than an oppressive and visible force. I would move freely around Auckland through the lockdowns, catching up with friends, going to the (otherwise empty) office, and making frequent trips to the supermarket and restaurants that enabled socially distant food pickups. I have colleagues that kept their businesses open and running through the lockdowns, who out of necessity ignored labour department inspectors seeking to shut them down fo non-compliance. Those that worked around the rules were able to survive. Too many that let themselves be constrained by these rules failed to do so.

We are now on the other side, and life is getting back to ‘normal.’ Long gone are the restrictions that were considered acceptable during the lockdowns, so much so that there are loud voices arguing they were unnecessary overkill and the government response was heavy-handed. We all gave up our freedoms to some extent, some glad to do so, some less so.

The final vestige of life under COVID that is still being dismantled is remote working. Many employees came to like the new model and even found ways to markedly enhance their lifestyle through it as if being remote was the new normal. I know of people who sold their Auckland home, moved to the Coromandel or Napier or some other distant settlement. This was something of a global movement. Swapping San Francisco/Bay Area for Oregon; Boston for Long Island; Singapore for Bali; London for Spain. Have broadband, can work. Their lifestyle was enhanced, they kept their big-city salaries, and in many cases their employers didn’t know or care.

But now they care. As soon as the lockdowns were far enough in the rear mirror, offices reopened, and employees are asked, cajoled, and instructed to come back to the office. Many – probably most – employees had no issue with this. But there has been a sizeable number of remote employees that prefer to remain remote. They want to retain their lifestyle (and big-city salaries), and can’t see any benefit to them in being forced back into a cubicle.

For the last few years, we have seen a hybrid model that didn’t really make anyone truly happy: allowing employees to work from home on some days but requiring weekly in-office days. But even this unhappy middle ground is being strangled as the Work-From-Office days increase, inevitably to full-time. This has driven employee churn in many companies, with remote workers competing for a smaller and smaller pool of remote jobs. At the same time, the job markets globally have swung strongly from employee to employer. In the vast majority of cases, even highly skilled employees lack the leverage to be able to demand a work configuration of their choice. If you want a job, you have to bend to the will of the employer.

Remote work isn’t dead, but it is severely constrained. Caught up in the WFO sweep-up are those employees that worked remotely prior to the COVID lockdowns.

When you look objectively at the benefits of having your employees in the office, the benefits strongly favour the firm, not the employee. In other words, there are few true incentives for your remote employees to return to the office other than keeping their job; and if that’s how they feel, they are in all likelihood reluctantly in the office and searching for a new (remote) role. Or at least something more flexible.

The transition to enable firms to remain open and employees to remain in employment during the COVID lockdowns was built on a social agreement for us all to work together for the good of everyone. Firms spent large on infrastructure to enable remote workers, and employees made it work to the extent possible. Some saw this condition as temporary, while others built new modes of work that relied on a level of permanence.

What I see now is that the social agreement has been exhausted, and employers are being ham-fisted in their push to have employees work solely from the office. This gets implemented as full-time in-office, no WFH. We are also seeing the counterpush, which I think will become a more common response from those same employees.

• If I can’t work from home (your rule), why am I taking my laptop home each night? Why am I doing all this extra work when I am at home, on my own time?
• If I am unwell, why do you expect me to work from home? I am either on sick leave (and not working) or I am in the office.
• Why on earth do you think it is acceptable to ask me to take my work laptop with me when I am on leave/holiday?

In other words, why is it OK for me to work remotely only when it suits you? I think, by extension, if another lockdown is needed – for whatever reason – there will be insufficient social goodwill for many firms to re-effect a widespread WFH model without significant concessions to employees. This is a risk many business owners are ignoring. An economic lockdown is no longer a Black Swan event. Businesses need to factor this type of response in to their plans going forward