No, I mean it requires more management. It’s not about butts in seats, it’s about communicating and keeping people on the same page.
Anecdotally, when shifting to remote work we often saw managers struggle with a tendency to micromanage and check in too frequently with remote employees. I know “butts in seats” is a common trope but in practice it was easier for people to get away with doing nothing at the office because managers assumed that in office meant they were working.
Communication overhead is absolutely higher in remote companies. It sounds more like you were describing a broken company culture that you managed to distance yourself from by going remote, but the culture is still broken.
A team that communicates properly in person will have more overhead to communicate remotely.
You mean it actually requires management. Office work is easy to manage with butts in seats. I had someone ask me once, if we were remote, how would we know people are working. I asked, how do we know they are working now?
Communication overhead with in person only appears lower. I've been a part of many meetings where people talk in circles, think they make a decision and then a week or 2 later wonder what was talked about. Of course, you might be unique and have a dedicated person who takes copious notes every meeting and sends them around afterwards. Remote pushes written communication as the first step, which I have found to be much better to build ideas from.
One thing that does not work is a company trying to do both. If anyone is remote, then the company needs to be remote first.