This is absolutely true also, but it is generally easier to address than the need for physical interaction often felt by people in management. (I'm not trying to be derogatory here, as good physical interaction is often closely tied to a manager's success, so it's natural that they would be wary of removing that aspect of their relationships.)
with modern software, it's only hard to do right if they're not at their laptop/workstation. which means they're doing some other shit other than working.
our entire team is remote. it's really obvious when someone isn't at their computer. it's basically the only hard requirement of the job beyond the work product - be at your computer when you say you are going to be at your computer.
The thing is, the skill level required to properly manage remote employees, especially in a mixed remote / non-remote office is higher. When you are large corporation and have to start looking at employees in a statistical manner, you might choose 'no remote' because it's cheaper / more possible to find managers that can do 'no remote' vs. 'mixed remote'. There is almost no large company that is remote only right now.
It's the same reason why almost every company programs in blub vs. lisp, haskell, erlang, etc. The skill level of employee can be hard to find who can do those things. Companies already feel supply constrained with engineers, now imagine you add the haskell requirement and you need to hire 1000 of them.
Startups can leverage this disadvantage sometimes by not having a statistical management requirement and start with a foundational advantage. There is also the case of using haskell killing your startup although because of tool problems, and big companies being able to make small special R&D type teams that can use Haskell, so it's definitely a balance.
Really? some times the crucial part of the job is done away from the computer.
I remember doing a quick fix for one of the attractions at the melenium dome - the core part of the work was working out on paper all the permutations and what should happen the coding at a terminal was the trivial part.
BTW the program correctly run first time and was delivered in less than a day.
Management isn't just about who's working or not. There's a lot of what makes a successful team that requires careful consideration to replicate when everyone is remote. Yes, modern technology makes much of this easier, but it still requires effort to identify and address, whereas it is somewhat automatic at physical offices.
For example, "water cooler" conversations. In a physical office these happen because people are conditioned to make small talk. That is not the case virtually, as it's easy to spend an entire day in a chat room with a co-worker and never interact with them.
