He was able to hire replacements due to employment climate.

“A lot of managers, and a lot of leaders, think that if they’re watching you, then you’re productive,” Mr. Cappelli said. “We know that’s not true.”
- Peter Cappelli, professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business

This reader comment is interesting:

Obviously, not everybody can be motivated or productive working from home, and for most companies and employees the answer is probably a mix of in-office and WFH. But having every single employee drag their butts into an office five days a week (even when leavened with "perks" like foosball tables and snacks) is definitely going to lose you a lot of good talent these days, particularly in IT, engineering, and other high-demand jobs.

In my last decade of IT work, I worked remotely most of the time and was extremely productive. We were evaluated based on our productivity, not on the appearance of being busy, sucking up to the boss, and so on. Most of my team-mates were scattered around the country and often the world, making spending 2+ hours a day commuting to an office just to work with them remotely from there completely superfluous.

Some in upper management had this fantasy of great ideas happening "around the water cooler." That was a crock, in my experience.

Somehow being around everyone was supposed to magically make you work better and more productively. But the truth was that it was very distracting and nerve wracking. A lot of people waited until others were gone or took the work home anyway to get some quiet and concentrate.

Also they shipped the factory work to low wage countries oceans away and tried to keep the R and D, and management here in the US. Where was the synergy then? We can send the work to other countries but not to a workers' homes an hour away? When the workers were taking the work home anyway a lot of the times.

and management has total capability of seeing what is up at all times as far as productivity. Other jobs would not have the same oversight as my job but it is an ideal job for doing at home.

A mortgage lender

because he thinks we're all getting too comfortable with being socially disconnected and isolated.

Maher totally missed the point. Nothing is more disconnecting and socially isolating than sitting in a car in rush hour traffic twice a day, commuting for an hour or more to a far suburb with affordable housing. Yeah, we saw our work colleagues, but we didn't see our families.

Hybrid work is here to stay, employees turning up at an office only periodically on a weekly or biweekly basis and working from home and pantsless the rest of the time. Employers need to realize that.

And Maher needs to listen to a few working stiffs instead of restricting himself to the cocktail circuit.

rampant. Even now they say we're losing around 400 people a day. If people can do their jobs at home, employers should allow them.

Of course nothing like that can ever possibly happen again....
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
(no paywall, no quota)