I think it has more to do with lazy management. Before WFH their job was basically just making sure the employees were sitting at their desks at a specific time and didn’t leave until after a specific time. So 9am, you’re sitting at your desk, at 5pm you’re sitting at your desk then they’ve done their job for the day.
WFH means they need to know that you’re actually working. So they have to know what you do (many bosses don’t actually know what their employees do) and have some way to measure that you’re doing that thing in a reasonable amount of time. It’s actually their job to do this even if you’re in the office, but it’s easier to just make sure you’re in a location where work is the only thing you can do and assume you’re doing work because there’s nothing else to do.
Also bosses are hesitant to verbally abuse employees over video chat as that can easily be recorded. RTO solves problems for managers that like to yell at their employees.
But they can’t say “we’re lazy and we want to be able to yell at you” so they come up with other reasons.
Sure, sometimes the real estate thing can be a factor when a company got massive tax breaks from the government under the promise of that the new Amazooglesoft “campus” will be a big economic driver for a city with a bunch of cities competing to give the biggest tax breaks to entice those companies to go there. The governments that gave those incentives will probably take them away (they should, those companies should be paying taxes) because there actually hasn’t been economic stimulus for the neighbourhoods of those offices spaces because of WFH. So in those cases you have to go to a place so you can buy lunch (and maybe go shopping after work) so your company can still get tax breaks.
I think it has more to do with lazy management. Before WFH their job was basically just making sure the employees were sitting at their desks at a specific time and didn’t leave until after a specific time. So 9am, you’re sitting at your desk, at 5pm you’re sitting at your desk then they’ve done their job for the day.
WFH means they need to know that you’re actually working. So they have to know what you do (many bosses don’t actually know what their employees do) and have some way to measure that you’re doing that thing in a reasonable amount of time. It’s actually their job to do this even if you’re in the office, but it’s easier to just make sure you’re in a location where work is the only thing you can do and assume you’re doing work because there’s nothing else to do.
Also bosses are hesitant to verbally abuse employees over video chat as that can easily be recorded. RTO solves problems for managers that like to yell at their employees.
But they can’t say “we’re lazy and we want to be able to yell at you” so they come up with other reasons.
Sure, sometimes the real estate thing can be a factor when a company got massive tax breaks from the government under the promise of that the new Amazooglesoft “campus” will be a big economic driver for a city with a bunch of cities competing to give the biggest tax breaks to entice those companies to go there. The governments that gave those incentives will probably take them away (they should, those companies should be paying taxes) because there actually hasn’t been economic stimulus for the neighbourhoods of those offices spaces because of WFH. So in those cases you have to go to a place so you can buy lunch (and maybe go shopping after work) so your company can still get tax breaks.
But mostly it’s just lazy managers.