"That’s why companies like IBM who pioneered telework in the 80’s started bringing employees back in 2018"
OMG why are we even bringing this up? Telework in the 80's and the 90's, terrible idea, I'm sure... 20-30 years later, not the same scenario - email, slack, video conferencing, google suite. I am still expected to produce that report, create that presentation, and run meetings.
"Verizon rifed thousands of jobs to build the Lake Mary office for the very purpose of collocation"
FALSE. Verizon opened the finance hub in Lake Mary in 2017 to take advantage of the tax credits that FL was offering to businesses that were willing to relocate to FL; it was just a plan from the FL governor at the time to create more jobs and help the local economy. Some teams in Finance from OH and TN were either offered relo money to move to FL or severance if they chose to stay (I was part of it). It wasn't really a move to collocate teams.
Non-collocated teams will exist as long as you see jobs available in about you for more than one location - and that's 98% of the jobs out there today.
The idea that you have to bring all team members to the same building to drive productivity and be creative, is pure BS, period. How many companies are out there today with teams spread all over the world, in different time zones? but here we are VZ teamers, let's just keep doing it the good old way ....