This is quite transparently FUD. Clearly many people have a vested interest in commercial real estate occupancy being high and are pushing this narrative to inflate the value of their currently declining investments.
I've been working remotely for 4 years and can assure you: no it isn't FUD. It is a real issue that can and should be addressed. And the good news is that CI/CD, Slack, Dischord and Meetup make the solutions possible. All you need is management understanding and buy in.
There are a lot of organizations that try remote with the same culture/mindset of in office. This is an error. Communication and iteration on remote work must be explicit, formalized and enforced.
I'm a huge proponent of WFH, but I do know where there are challenges.
New employee onboarding is challenging. It can be done, but it has to be very deliberate.
Any large team moves/merges are harder. Again, it can be done but there has to be a lot of deliberate work.
Interpersonal relationships are important for working. They are the lubricant that helps prevent communication friction. It used to be those relationships happened naturally in the office, but now they have to be deliberately nurtured. And that's part of WFH, not something ignore.
Office relationships can be good and also extremely toxic. I doubt there is any statistical evidence that being in the office leads to any net benefit of relationships.
