"The problem with the work-from-office model is it’s time-based by default, whereas work-from-home is outcome-based."

And herein lies the problem. Most of what we traditionally consider "work" is time based by default - including how people are paid, how leave is accrued, even promotions and rewards can be based on tenure. By default, most people are paid for their time, not their outcomes (yes there are exceptions and yes many roles include variable components based on outcomes, but still a base component tied to time.)

This is why WFH causes friction, particularly in traditional businesses. Companies have traditionally owned your time. WFH lets employees mostly own their time. So now companies are paying for something they don't control. That's hard for them to swallow.

Maybe the whole model should change - if WFH is outcome based then companies would own your outcomes. They'd pay for your outcomes. This would be better alignment - employees work from home and focus on outcomes, the amount of time worked matters less. It'd be a difficult shift to make though, because people are all so used to being paid on the assumption of consistency of time, not the potential inconsistency of outcomes. Now, if someone takes leave for a week, they get paid for a week. Easy. But how would that work in an outcome-based world? If you take leave for a week, how many outcomes should you be paid for?

I'm a huge advocate of flexible working or working from home or whatever we call it. And many companies don't have an issue with it of course. I've been lucky enough to work with many companies over my career - from global giants to startups - that were all very flexible-working friendly. They shoehorn the old model into the new model, and overlook some of that clunkiness. Is it abused at times? Sure...just as - like you point out - someone can sit in the office and do two-fifths of stuff all.

But to make "traditional business" comfortable with WFH as a permanent fixture, a rethink of all those traditional work and employment policies - remuneration, leave accrual, and everything else that's time based - might be in order?