I love working onsite and observing my coworkers spend 30 minutes making breakfasts and taking 2-hour lunches and finishing a 1-hour meeting in 20-30 minutes and then spending the rest of the blocked time just talking about anything but work as they have a proof on the calendars that they've actually worked. Some of my best memories from work are of people starting to fall asleep during meetings scheduled shortly after lunch when everybody's hypoglycemic due to the insulin putting off the carb-heavy lunch! Very productive, no doubt! I've never seen a software engineer put more than 3-4 hours of productive work onsite! Meanwhile, after 10 years being exclusively remote, I've put tons more productive hours working from home a day. In fact, knowing I'm privileged, I put in more than 40 hours/week most weeks - not because my manager tells me to, but because I want to!
You can build a mediocre product with micromanagers - no doubt, I've seen it, but I've never seen great products being built under such poor, primitive management strategy! If you really want a great, performing, and creative team, then do a better job at hiring and motivating people! Policing works only for certain types of jobs, not for jobs where managers are less smart than the workers! And I yet must see proof that exchanging viruses onsite is more productive than online meetings, which could also get recorded, etc.
You can build a mediocre product with micromanagers - no doubt, I've seen it, but I've never seen great products being built under such poor, primitive management strategy! If you really want a great, performing, and creative team, then do a better job at hiring and motivating people! Policing works only for certain types of jobs, not for jobs where managers are less smart than the workers! And I yet must see proof that exchanging viruses onsite is more productive than online meetings, which could also get recorded, etc.