I say this as someone who has worked remotely and liked it, but remote workers in positions that require frequent coordination and interaction with their teams are somewhat less productive and more expensive when you add in regular travel to the company. We have to offer some advantage to the company, and reduced salary requirements are often the advantage.
But not having to pay for a remote worker's office space (rent, electricity, free food and drinks, cleaning services, etc.) is already a pretty big advantage to the company.
Also, remote workers can be more productive, since the average office is full of distractions. (I work with some very productive remote co-workers.)
Office space is almost never an advantage. There is virtually never any marginal savings, ie they have room for you in the office, you just don't use it. And offices aren't that expensive relative to salary anyway. Even sf office rents are $70/ft2. I see your point if you go remote-only, but that really isn't what we're discussing.
Price for a week in the office in sf: $500-ish flight, 4 hotel nights $1100, $90 per diem $450, taxis/ubers $30/day = $2k - $2.5k. Throw in a $500 team lunch or two.
I agree remote workers can be more productive; I certainly was. However, I used most of those productivity gains to work fewer hours.
Cost is tricky because the big costs are a step function.
So long as there's an empty seat in the office, it really doesn't cost much to have someone sit there every day. Yeah, there are some free drinks but it's really in the noise and might well be dwarfed by some additional travel for the remotee to come into the office now and then.
However, at some point, having a significant number of remote workers may mean you don't take out a lease on an additional floor or move to a bigger building or construct a new campus, which can be huge costs.
The productivity debate has been done to death and I won't repeat it here :-)
This is only true if a large % of your employees are remote. Making exceptions for a few has no upside to hard costs.
EDIT: And from my experience, 30% of people work more productively remote, 40% about the same, 30% are less productive. That said, there are also productivity losses to in-office people when a smaller percentage work remote, especially if their jobs require frequent team interactions.
For developers it is certainly doable. For other teams it takes a lot of effort for everything to even out. Some companies have figured it out, some have not.
If you work in City A at HQ, and then decide to work remote in City B (and the company approves it), the company is NOT on the hook to pay your travel expenses to City A.
You chose to move, it's your responsibility to cover your travel expenses when you need to be in the office.
Now, if you already live in City B when the company hires you, or the company asked you to relocate to City B, then they should cover your travel expenses when you need to travel to City A.
Any reasonable company that approves someone to switch from an office location to remote will absolutely cover T&E for team meetings and other visits to company locations.
If a company hires you at SF HQ and you live in SF, then a year later you announce you're moving to Seattle, it is entirely unfair to ask an employer to float your travel expenses back to HQ.
Your choice to leave, your financial burden. Sure, you can negotiate this as if it were a raise, but be advised that most companies will then simply deny your request to move.
