I’ve worked for a number of them that did it right. And it does depend on the job, of course, but most companies that do it wrong also do one other thing VERY wrong, they have not a single clue to how measure effectiveness or productivity of their employees, and a culture of “if I see them doing something it must be productive” creeps into the heads of VERY lazy middle managers who also aren’t being measured correctly for leadership skill and effectiveness. Conversely the “if I don’t see them, they must not be doing anything” silliness also creeps in.
In general though, companies that can’t figure out how to manage remote workers were never managing in building workers well in the first place.
Funny thing is, companies have been managing remote workers forever in their Sales departments. They have real world metrics to hit, and real measurements, and they’re tied directly to compensation.
In most tech job roles the company that can’t figure out how to manage properly or measure effectiveness properly always falls into the “tickets are all the same amount of work” trap, and they start making “number of closed tickets” the goal, whether it makes the product better, cheaper, safer, or more appealing to the customer, or more profitable.
Getting a “ticket based” company to pull their head out long enough to realize, ticket 128464 is a million dollar profit increase to the company per year, versus the thousand other stupid and useless tickets that are open, is very very difficult. Often impossible.
Just one of piles of repetitive culture and measurement/assessment systemic problems that companies who can’t seem to do remote worker management, almost always do.
Another is not investing in GOOD remote communications technology. It’s possible to get a meeting to feel extremely face-to-face with the right video gear. Since I worked for a company that made the stuff, I’m biased, but we definitely ate our own dog food. If someone thought they needed to pay for travel, they were asked why with a very serious tone.
Hate to hurt fellow pilots, since full airplanes are their livelihood, but time wasted on aircraft going somewhere was VERY discouraged at that company. If you couldn’t give a very good reason you couldn’t use a video room, you weren’t getting travel approved. And yes, you needed office space for those, if you needed that level of interactivity. Kinda. At least five or six of our execs made room in their houses for the video rooms. They could take one of those calls that way and look like they weren’t just in their robe and slippers ten minutes before the meeting.
It did drive one funny culture thing though. If you did need to come to the office for a video meeting and the customer was ancient in their thinking about clothing, most of us would keep a button down shirt and jacket at the office and toss that on, while still in jeans or shorts even, under the desk line. LOL. Never stand up in a customer video conference with those customers. Hahaha.
The one area they went wrong, but it was understandable, was techs needed our multiple monitors and windows open to troubleshoot things. Video is a horrible medium for that UNLESS you’re screen sharing. Why? Because you’re going to just be looking at the side of my head while I’m reading things on the three monitors to the left of my camera, which was built into my desk phone. Enjoy looking at my ear.
The other minor mistake was video didn’t have the concept of “voice mail” or s screen that said “not here right now”. Our defacto standard was to point our cameras at a wall clock on our walls or cubical walls, so the idiot who called in the wrong time zone would see the office was dark and the clock time.
Same with our home offices.
But definitely, no matter what, if you make it a priority, most travel can be replaced with good conferencing products. Not free ones, and not $20 USB mics can cameras. Still be cheaper than paying for the travel, though. Easy.
Same with our home offices. 
