WFH has had a varied history in the CS and Depts have had different approaches.
Historically many senior managers liked presenteeism as they felt it drove productivity but management allowed themselves to occasionally WFH whilst resisting WFH policies for staff.
2012 was a game changer as the Olympics needed CS in London to WFH to reduce footfall on the Tube, trains and buses. The MCO commissioned a standard WFH policy and pressure applied to all depts to implement.
Many senior managers then went back to the archaic presenteeism approach and turned back some of the advances.Sadly many Depts did not use the opportunity to develop a proper WFH policy which included pay.
Covid was a game changer and the dragging of heels = failure to have proper WFH policies, backfired spectacularly.
Had Depts thought WFH through after the Olympics they could have put in place a reasonable policy including the basic reward principles of attracting, retaining and motivating employees.
A pay policy where everyone is on the same National pay bands. Location allowances/pay bands cease e.g. London weighting ceases. An office allowance is introduced, based on a combination of location, average travel costs per location and average commute e.g. £5k Zone 1 central London £2.5k Outer London/Manchester/Newcastle etc.
The allowance is paid retrospectively based on the pro-rata number of days in the office in the previous year. This would compensate some of the commuting time and costs and incentivise /support at least some presence in the office on a regular basis.
52 weeks in a year less leave = c44 weeks round down to 40 days = average of 20% in the office = 20% of allowance.
The problem is this had to be in place before Covid to work.