The benefits of the automation is reaped by the business (and ultimately, the shareholders), not you (as an employee).

Therefore, if after having done the automation, and there does not exist any other tasks that you could perform, you will get fired. Hence, it makes some sense to look for some other work to fill up your hour so as to remain employed.

> If so, what would be the motivation to write the script and increase efficiency?

i guess there isn't really any. Unless you're employed specifically to write such an automation, doing it might not get you any rewards.

However, in reality, because there's almost infinite things to automate, a smart business would continue to ask you to automate more and more of the work in the business, and would pay you big bucks to do so.

I think a better test would be, as a tradeoff for work-from-home, would you subject to one week a quarter locked in a hotel (room, restaurant, conference room, that's it) where you do nothing for 10 hours a day except in-person collaboration on the company's most difficult and challenging problems. Whiteboarding, programming sprints, strategy sessions, etc.