> There's a great deal of cultural and technical enablement that needs to happen to allow remote work to be effective. Technical-enablement part is already wel

> There's a great deal of cultural and technical enablement that needs to happen to allow remote work to be effective. Technical-enablement part is already well known and is quite simple: easy access to all needed information: primarily, source code, schematics, datasheets, VHDL/Verilog, servers, specifications and product roadmaps. People working on FOSS projects successfully do that every day, and proven tools and the methodologies do exist. Anything more than that will be needed just as well for non-remote work to be effective. Culturally though, it is indeed a very different story, and there the mistrust plays its big role, the OP nailed it. Not only from direct team managers, but on all levels, from team members to (cross-team) project people. Another big component of cultural misfit is when the efficient remote communication is simply impossible, not because it is remote but because remote working brings together people who cannot communicate efficiently, even put together in the same room. For various reasons: different timezones, different native tongues, cultures that require active face-to-face confrontation... Interestingly enough, this could actually be the predictable outcome of a company's assumed behaviour -- imagine, for example, a big company frequently acquiring small ones everywhere around the world.