In an era of declining birthrates and an aging population, maintaining the employment rate is a critical factor for potential economic growth. "Work-from-home" (WFH), the concept of employees working from home, can serve as an important measure for sustaining employment. The COVID-19 pandemic that swept across the globe in 2020, though unintentional, effectively conducted a large-scale social experiment on flexible work arrangements such as WFH. This study analyzes the WFH experiences among workers in Korea, China, Japan, the United States, and Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic, and further examines both its potential as a future mode of work and the conditions required for its broader adoption. Cross-national comparisons reveal that WFH experiences vary by gender, age, occupation, education level, employment type, and company size. They also show differences in subjective perceptions of WFH effectiveness as well as in willingness to participate in WFH arrangements in the future. These findings indicate that attitudes toward WFH are shaped by individual experiences as well as socio-cultural contexts and institutional factors, and underscore the need for an inclusive and sustainable approach to expanding WFH as a future mode of work.