It’s a good question without firm answers.
Our group had 3 people start late in March last year literally days after we had transitioning to work from home, all of whom somehow ended up on my team. Aside from showing up the first day to sign paperwork for HR, none came back into the office nor personally met any of their teammates for several months if at all.
None were entry-level, but even then it has been a mixed bag. The most experienced of the bunch was somebody I worked with before at a different company and he transitioned pretty easily and was operating at a high level very quickly and didn’t really need to meet people in-person. One hasn’t met anybody on the team in person and has clearly not picked up the work culture and is in danger of being put on a performance improvement plan already. Individual variations aplenty.
More than I would have thought, though. Personally, like most workers, I see the benefits of some in-person interaction at the office but don’t think this needs to be 5 days a week. I would love a transition to 2-3 days WFH days.
I hate micro-managing but some people actually prefer it (getting 7-8 calls a day from the same person gets really annoying) and it’s easier to do that sort of thing at the office.