My point is that remote work isn’t a cut-and-dried employer vs worker issue. Firms that mandate workers back to the office for ideological reasons might find themselves at a competitive disadvantage in real terms. Mandating employees back to the office has increased overhead costs, shrinks the available talent pool, and doesn’t necessarily lead to increased productivity or profitability in the short- or long-term.

Remote work is sometimes framed as something that is a clear benefit to the employee with a negative or neutral effect on the firm, but that’s just not true. There are negative and positive effects to both employers and employees, and pretending that there is a clear answer that applies broadly to all or most circumstances is ideology.

Now, employers might want to frame remote work as a pure employee benefit so that they can extract concessions from employees in other areas, but we shouldn’t do their work for them by accepting that framing.