Taiwan workforce relations is all about control.
Confucian hierarchies and a love of rote learning, paper qualifications and process.
If there is one great outcome from COVID, for many of us, it is that even future work, when things return to normal, will never go back to the way it was. In other words, it has impacted the future of work. Employers, in many locales, have seen things can still be done at home, that money can be saved on office real estate, and that productivity even increases. Workers love the savings on clothes, hygiene products, transport, etc. In a lot of countries, people are really thinking about relocating to hinterland areas where living is cheaper.
In my own circumstances, I have WFH now for 14 months.
When normal does return at the end of this year or slightly before, I will likely work outside of the nearest big city hub WFH two to three days a week. Maybe into the office 1 or 2 days a week. Even after COVID is past tense.
If this is prolonged in Taiwan, do you see work ever becoming that trust and outcome based? It would mean losing control in a society with no unions, where a lot of folk at the worker bee level are gormless to the extreme. Where asshats remain in the office until 9pm and are passive like eunuchs.
My guess-- fuck no. Taiwan SME bosses, even with cases going up, will retain to the old methods, and it could have high costs.
Taiwan, Vietnam and other quasi authoritarian countries did a great job in using that centralism to get on top of it early. But if cases rise and remain, will they adopt and change in workforce relations? Snowballs chance in hell.