In Australia we tend to be 5-15 years behind most of the (dubious or otherwise) business trends from EU / US -- though every place I've worked here since the 19

In Australia we tend to be 5-15 years behind most of the (dubious or otherwise) business trends from EU / US -- though every place I've worked here since the 1990's has eagerly embraced open office. Reasons pushed typically include the common 'improved collaboration', but it's tacitly understood it's all down to real estate costs. Office space is expensive in major Australian cities. I'm with a government agency that was in the throes of moving to a hot-desking arrangement when the pandemic arrived. On top of 'improved collaboration' there were some benefits claimed that I can't believe were made in good faith, including gems such as 'more light between desks'. It wasn't clear who thought the inter-desk spaces were too dark. (These are floors with standard, horrible, fluorescent tubes flooding every surface.) The week that our team worked from home while our particular area was being renovated (primarily the removal of partitions to allow everyone to always have at least two faces in constant peripheral vision left and right of your monitor) was the week that a lockdown was called here, and it was months before any of us stepped back into the office. Even now we're one or two days a week, and some are eschewing returning entirely for the time. Perversely the poor coordination of our federal administration on the vaccination front means that we're still at least 8 months away from being able to make any claims of safety via herd immunity. I don't doubt that someone with expensive shoes is running the numbers, trying to work out the best trade-off for offloading some office space vs ensuring useful productivity & mental health for the staff vs not raising the ire of staff or unions vs attracting good candidates beyond the current situation. I don't envy them. On the other hand, I had two years pre-pandemic being on-site with the organisation & the team -- my job would be insanely difficult if I'd come into it while everyone was remote. I guess the claim could be made that this reflects some lack of organisational sophistication - the reliance on knowing who to talk to, rather than having documentation and systems in place to help new or existing staff navigate that, but projecting backwards I don't believe I've worked in any organisation that had/has that. I expect more organisations will, coming out of this pandemic, reconsider that problem.