This is not just true of remote work, it's also true of "remote" offices.
I work in Ireland for a US company. When I started in the company, I was constantly surprised with the competence of people I work with in my local office, in NY, in D.C. & in Asian offices, compared to those I work with in SF (our HQ).
But after a while I realised it wasn't that people in SF were less competent or people in other offices were moreso. It was simply that the levels were different. PoCs for a project who were at a similar "level" to me were clearly less experienced in SF, due—seemingly—to the promotional ladder just being so much more accessible there. Because those responsible for promotions are present in person.
I don't think this is an easily surmountable problem with humans, but I do hope that WFH becoming more common will make people generally more aware of the challenge.
I’ve seen the opposite from a company overcompensating. There was a remote office and some complained about promotion opportunities. There were promotions alright and then there were several complaints about the competence of some people there. Nothing was done for a long time other than blaming the people who complained about not working with them better. They didn’t try to argue that the people were actually competent since there had been multiple complaints from multiple people. Furthermore, there were obvious issues. The remote office basically formed a remote clique. They eventually got reorg’d out of existence as an individual group due to incompetence.
I think it just depends on the particular situation. It can swing either way.
I work in Ireland for a US company. When I started in the company, I was constantly surprised with the competence of people I work with in my local office, in NY, in D.C. & in Asian offices, compared to those I work with in SF (our HQ).
But after a while I realised it wasn't that people in SF were less competent or people in other offices were moreso. It was simply that the levels were different. PoCs for a project who were at a similar "level" to me were clearly less experienced in SF, due—seemingly—to the promotional ladder just being so much more accessible there. Because those responsible for promotions are present in person.
I don't think this is an easily surmountable problem with humans, but I do hope that WFH becoming more common will make people generally more aware of the challenge.