It was certainly a test under non-normal circumstances. People didn't know how long it would last, and may not have the option of going in to the office at all.

It was certainly a test under non-normal circumstances. People didn't know how long it would last, and may not have the option of going in to the office at all. For example, a lot of people have put off moving out of expensive, bad accomodation near the office because they didn't know if it would last; working from home in an overpriced flat, where a significant other and handful of children are also all trying to work from home and nobody can go out, is a very different game to working from home in a nicer, bigger, cheaper house with a lot more room in a nicer area where people can go out and where people can go to the office as needed (which, I have to say, for me is basically never - I have sat at my office desk once since March 2020, and that was to empty the drawers and clear it, since I'm never sitting there again; I do have a strong bias in favour of WFH). I now have someone on my team moving a couple of hours out of London, to live by the seaside in a house rather than in central London in a little flat, and one chap has moved all the way back to Yorkshire, where he is now near family and friends, back where he grew up. For them, now that they have the assurance from our big boss that this is a permanent option (with new contracts, no less, stating that the employee's place of work is their own home or other such suitable location) WFH has suddenly transformed in an enormous way that it hadn't really permanently done so during the immediate Covid response.