Does anyone think that the real reason they want people back in the office is because they know the 80% of office work is utterly unnecessary bullshit and that once you aren't there all the time it's easy for you to realize that as well. I just sat through a six hour zoom meeting that I was required to be at and didn't pay any attention at all. I will face absolutely no negative consequences for that nor would I be getting any rewards for really focusing on it. If that meeting had been in person, I might have felt obliged to pay attention and participate and not realized what an enormous waste of time it was.
Without all the little office bs around work, people wake up to how odd, alienating, and unnecessary cubicle land is. They need this tendency quashed which is why they're trying to force you back to the office.