A lot of times, when people discuss the phenomenon of employers ending work-from-home and try to make their employees come back to the office, people say that the motivation is to raise real estate prices.
I don’t follow the logic at all. How would doing this benefit an employer in any way?
I think all answers so far are wrong/only rationalizations after the fact. I’m pretty sure the real reason to get people back is a feeling of control and superiority.
It’s harder to do something else than work when you’re at the office. So they want to at least be able to look over the shoulder of their employees, which gives them a feeling of being in control.
The other is superiority, how are managers going to feel superior, like their higher status means something, if there is no one there that’s deferring to them? “Wfh superiority” does not feel as real as seeing real people react to your presence in some way.
Achieving high social status is one of the base desires of being human, and it’s being applied to the workplace majorly. Even if technically nothing changes for bosses regarding status with wfh, it still feels like status is lost because the effects are not as visible, which has to be avoided at almost all costs.