With COVID so successfully demonstrating how much work can be done remotely, how productivity increased, how much less pollution there was to less driving, less spent on healthcare due to pollution exposure, fewer traffic accidents, etc… the recent uniform push of returning to offices boils down to 2 simple points.
Control and portfolios.
They want us to jump through hoops. They want us tired and miserable. They want us burning gas to keep profits up. They want bodies in buildings or their value plummets.
Most wealthy people invest in property. They then use that property as leverage for loans and other investments. Bad things happen when the value of their asset is less than they've leveraged against it.
Basically 2008 mbs fiasco but with corporate mortgage backed securities.
If people aren't going to the office, the office isn't needed. If no one needs office space, it loses value. Just look at your average mall that's slowly dying in the face of Amazon and such.
If they're going to insist we waste time, gas, our health, and environment for their portfolios they need to start paying us. This creates natural incentive to prefer WFH and compensate those that have spent the time, pay for car wear and tear, breathe highway smog, and risk traffic accidents to work jobs that actually require physical presence.