Do you trust your remote or distributed workers/colleagues?

Overseas I saw productivity and performance increase when workers were remote, and still managers did not trust remote employees as much as when they were in the office. It's all about a loss of control, or the perception of same.

When office-bound the impression is working an 8-hour shift. When home-bound (remote) there is more of a tendency to 'multi-task', i.e. taking the dog for a walk, going for a run during lunch.

(But what about all those smoke breaks!)

The reality is that even in the office, you're getting 5-6 hours of solid work a day, regardless of the location (remote or office)

The perception of what it means to work remote is the problem here. Take Eric's comment above - no trust at all. That is [the] a problem. So what do we measure, time or quality?

Unfortunately, many do take advantage of an organization's trust. Some org's are tracking login location and times. Maybe there should be a mandate for video calls. Honestly, heck, most don't even pay attention in meetings when sitting in person in the office - typing, texting, surfing, sleeping, whatever.

Now, what I like about co-location are the relationships that come from personal and ad-hoc conversations, design discussions, what-if's, etc. There is just something organic about co-location and something I believe that no matter how great our remote supported tools are, it is just not the same.

When office-bound the impression is working an 8-hour shift. When home-bound (remote) there is more of a tendency to 'multi-task', i.e. taking the dog for a walk, going for a run during lunch.

(But what about all those smoke breaks!)

The reality is that even in the office, you're getting 5-6 hours of solid work a day, regardless of the location (remote or office)

The perception of what it means to work remote is the problem here. Take Eric's comment above - no trust at all. That is [the] a problem. So what do we measure, time or quality?

Unfortunately, many do take advantage of an organization's trust. Some org's are tracking login location and times. Maybe there should be a mandate for video calls. Honestly, heck, most don't even pay attention in meetings when sitting in person in the office - typing, texting, surfing, sleeping, whatever.

Now, what I like about co-location are the relationships that come from personal and ad-hoc conversations, design discussions, what-if's, etc. There is just something organic about co-location and something I believe that no matter how great our remote supported tools are, it is just not the same.

I am a big supporter of remote workers, having managed a migration from office to home for the (almost) entire workforce of one organization overseas. The managers that remained at the company offices had/have an issue with the migration citing several problems including trust, but when you drill down you discover that a lot of those issues can be mitigated by appropriate technology, regular face-to-face (virtual) meetings, feedback loops, an open attitude, and respect for flexible working arrangements.

instead of discussing on the parameter of trust, can it be discussed based on performance and productivity? Whether work happens in local office or in remote, ultimately it depends on estimating the quantum and time it consumes. If the progress and completion is happening as per plan, it should be fine.

It should be based on productivity and performance yes, but still the trust issues are real, and are displayed on both sides (managers and remote workers) so they need to be addressed. Part of addressing it is through performance/productivity measures.