I think it's a variety of factors and a lot of decision makers failing to view the picture holistically (optimistic view) or just being malicious (pessimistic).
- A lot of top level decision makes are very aware of the costs of things. Knowing exactly how much money a large office space costs and constantly coming in only to see it very empty makes them want to see it used more.
- Face to face communication is better than the alternative. Full stop. That said, you can get like ~75% of that by just turning the camera on. I think a lot of places should just consider encouraging people to use their cameras more.
- The executive mindset is probably that people goof off less in the office.
- If you want to lay people off, forcing RTO is a good way to get people to leave voluntarily.
- There's likely a sense of "the way things have always been done" being inherently better in the minds of some executives pushing RTO.
I think ultimately it's short sighted. I think companies that actually are facing problems with WFH (and not just being malicious) should try to address them in different ways instead of just killing it off.