Work from home hypotheses

Not sure if its life or fiction, but things have changed drastically around me and once such a thing is work from home. Talking about the corporate world, full-time work from home has been welcomed by both employees and employers. Though experiments were done in the past, no one had the statistics to safely say that they can completely transition to work from home without any impact. However, with the data available from the crash course of work from home(wfh) during Covid-19, many big companies have concluded that their employees can work from home indefinitely. Many other companies have extended wfh till December or 2021. But is the data on which these decisions are made, reliable? Can results obtained by some tech companies be extended to most of the companies?

There are two key sources of data, which can help in making these decisions:

• Information about Covid-19. As no one knows how long Covid-19 will stay for how long, forever wfh decision can be taken on this data.
• Early data from wfh output: I wish there was data available and will surely add analysis part after next quarter, but for now there are multiple hypotheses, which are stopping me to think on the same lines as big tech firms w.r.t. wfh, given that we only have the last 2 months' data.

Based on the above two key matrices for decision making, the key hypothesis, which are making me challenge various wfh announcements recently are:

1. Momentum: Many analysts are assuming that we have crossed the trough with almost 100% wfh and if we have sustained this time by working from home, we can do it in the future as well. However, as per me, we have not reached the freewheeling stage. The maximum I can assume is momentum and this momentum is keeping the wheel rotating, but at a slower pace by each passing day. No one has tested that wfh can sustain the time when the pace will start increasing. When growth cycle resumes, no covid-19 data can validate that wfh can sustain it, or are we saying that some companies will never return to growth?
2. Band-aid solutions: Based on my talk with people in Industry, I identified that the main focus of employees during the last 2 months has been to provide Band-aid solutions to issues/ problems, and they plan to provide a permanent solution when they go back in offices. However, the data do not differentiate between a Band-aid solution and an actual solution. With the skewed data, can we make long term decisions?
3. Procrastination: Many of the initial surveys have indicated that wfh has actually increased the efficiency of employees. But can that survey be trusted? I don’t have data right now, but I see the trend similar to the learning curve. During the initial stage, wfh has enabled people to see the savings in travel time, getting ready time etc. However, it is not sustainable as the availability of extra time makes people lazy and lethargic, and the impression of having more time, in itself is the biggest factor behind procrastination. Can 2 months of data be able to rule out the hypothesis?
4. Company/ Country Independent: Governments around the world are currently focusing on Covid-19 and not focusing much on governance w.r.t wfh. But, sorry to say that governments will not come up with something which discourages it, soon given the loss wfh will have on states/countries' economy. My reference case is Libra. During initial stage, it was assumed to be the ultimate solution to transactions around the world. But many governments put in rules leading to a complete stoppage of a great solution. With this incomplete data, can some companies conclude that they can allow wfh indefinitely?

Having said all that, I am a firm believer in wfh, but only challenging the long term decisions made based on limited data, when we don’t know how long Covid-19 will actually stay.

Some reference link, w.r.t recent events:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/12/twitter-tells-employees-they-can-work-from-home-forever.html

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15259-working-from-home-more-productive.html