Remote work existed long before the pandemic, but the necessity of separating people to prevent the spread of disease sure made it more prevalent. Now, many companies are faced with a decision of whether to provide incentives for workers to return to the office, force them back, or just embrace remote work as the future and figure out their policies from there.
It's all pretty messy right now. In some cases, workers have been loose in their interpretation of "remote," and in others, management has come down hard on workers being too remote.