The IT guys generally hate remote office technology. Some of it is a legit, if outdated, concern about network security. Some of it is a lack of basic support skills. Easier to go up a couple flights of stairs, sit down at the machine and fix the printer connection that walk a user through it. Too often it's just plain arrogant ego because it wasn't their idea. In the same way that the true function of the HR department is to defend the company against it's employees, the true function of the IT department is to defend the corporate network from the users. Neither of them exist to be helpful to the average employee. I used to work for a call center hardware OEM. As our management tools shifted toward network based solutions I had to work with a lot of IT departments at a lot companies in a lot of industries. My experience with them was pretty consistent but some were worse than others and none of them were user friendly.

Another fairly common push back is the productivity argument - making sure the worker bees are in the hive when they're supposed to be AND actually making honey. It's also nothing that can't be addressed by management doing their job. I've been out of it for at least 10 years and when I left the technology to record everything happening in your cubicle existed and I installed some of it and took note of how little of it actually got used. I've busted more slackers getting over while being bored enough to play with the systems for a couple hours when baby sitting new installs than the entire supervisor staff did all day.

Telecommuting can be great for the company, the employee, the customers and the environment. I'd like to hope that those lessons can be learned during this plague and that it leads to a new normal. I have serious doubts about it happening.