Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon has long been a critic of homeworking, describing the pandemic-related shift once as "an aberration". Last week, he called time on the practice, scrapping most of the bank's remaining Covid-19 restrictions for US employees in a bid to get as many as possible back into the office.

For more than two years, companies around the world embraced remote work and hybrid home-office arrangements as infections surged and the death toll escalated.