That required office time means everyone still needs to live within a short distance of the office though. For a lot of people that defeats some of the main benefits of remote.
For a quarterly 1 week meeting the company can just fly everyone in who needs to be there. They already do this for board meetings so why not important plannings?
Hell, put it in a fun location and call it a retreat.
I still think that’s a big ask. I’d bet that the group of people that want full remote also includes a large number of people who hate the idea of company retreats. I’d rather finish work at 5pm and have fun on my own terms than a week of proscribed company “fun”.
Sure it’s a big ask but if the planning is important and you are important to the planning and it is deemed a sufficient quality of planning can only happen in person … business travel seems far too common to be worthless. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Nobody said anything about work activities after 5. You can go do whatever.
But hanging out with coworkers when you’re all seeing each other for a rare or even first time seems like a pretty common whatever.
I mentioned in another thread, my company is planning to do this twice a year but the actual company mandate is to make any in person meeting or gathering accessible to remote people.
This is exactly what my company plans when it’s safe though only twice a year, and we will easily pay for leadership to do the same more frequently if needed.
I planned to fly in where ever for that week, not commute every day.
To be clear: I do not advocate required office time for anyone. For me I’d like to spend a week in the office with my peers in leadership and we all have a lot of ability to do that without much chaos. We also can include folks actively who don’t want to come in, this is actually our company mandate, also. If there is any in person meeting it needs to be accessible and visible to remote folks.
Hell, put it in a fun location and call it a retreat.