I think that the 'importance of face-to-face interaction' argument is a helplessly contrived one, an attempt to avoid the elephant in the room.
There are plenty of examples that show that working remotely without daily face-to-face interaction can work very well.
What's markedly different about environments that successfully adopted remote work are aspects like:
- a lack of cargo cult work organisation and office politics
- an atmosphere of trust rather than petty control freaks who need to constantly keep an eye on their subordinates in order to know they're still 'working'
- adapting to different forms of communication
When people say that they can't communicate as well with someone who isn't in the same room that doesn't necessarily mean that a remote setup doesn't work. It could simply mean they're just lazy and not willing to adjust to a different kind of work environment.
Working remotely requires the participants to be much more communicative because in such a setting communication for the most part doesn't just happen serendipitously, you have to work to make it happen.
There are plenty of examples that show that working remotely without daily face-to-face interaction can work very well.
What's markedly different about environments that successfully adopted remote work are aspects like:
- a lack of cargo cult work organisation and office politics
- an atmosphere of trust rather than petty control freaks who need to constantly keep an eye on their subordinates in order to know they're still 'working'
- adapting to different forms of communication
When people say that they can't communicate as well with someone who isn't in the same room that doesn't necessarily mean that a remote setup doesn't work. It could simply mean they're just lazy and not willing to adjust to a different kind of work environment.
Working remotely requires the participants to be much more communicative because in such a setting communication for the most part doesn't just happen serendipitously, you have to work to make it happen.