Question.
Hypothetically speaking.
If they were demanding that your team return to the office 5x per week and you had to provide data/evidence supporting your claim that your team is more efficient while working remotely, what would you present?
Not trying to argue but just asking.
There are tons of studies both ways, just pick your side then find the evidence.
Not addressed to me obviously, but in certain sectors like IT, there is usually an objective measure of productivity so for example help fesk has trouble tickets. Likely as a result of your contract to the place you are providing that service or as a requirement from your employer, there is an SLA, service level agreement. For simplicity sake, let's say you are expected to turn 40 tickets a week. By the way this was the exact number when I worked at Ft Sill Network Enterprise Center, you fall behind that, emails start getting sent, meetings start getting had, you get on paperwork, etc.
So obviously it'd be very easy for management to say hey since you startied working from home, your metrics are failing/the same/better. So of all sectors, IT are probably the main why like **** that why do I need to be in the office I am doing the same thing or more from home. Many of the resistant bosses can only argue "because they're in the office, because I am the boss and I said so, because that's how it has always been" as far as why RTO is better/needed, and 99% of them want US/YOU to come back into the office but yea if you need them they'll be at the house, **** traffic and all that ****. Amazon is dealing with that right now in a big way
I don't know how it works in other industries, accounting for example, are you "prosessing" 20 invoices a week? But regardless, if there is no measurable metric to guage productivity, you can't really quantify that your employers are less productive WFH and again it's just a control thing and a "because they are in the office," like most people don't spend half the day on ESPN/Fox News/Fantasy Sports/etc and take infinity smoking breaks a day.
Sorry for the rant, just something that bothered me. It's why I switched jobs so many times since the pandemy, they promise oh its full remote we are never going to the office, then turns into 1 day a week, then 2, etc. and I know where it's going so I dip. Should be added that as a Sys Admin, I was working on virtual computers that don't really exist so there's no touch labor component either. You want me to get in my car and drive to an office, to still have to get on my laptop and log into the internet cloud to work? The internet/cloud is everywhere.