I don't necessarily buy the arguments around real estate investment, but I think it's important to note that the office is a construct from before the popularity of the internet. A lot of the current crop of exec started their jobs before remote work was viable, so their mental model of how work is done might require an office because that's how they used to work.

It's entirely possible that the question of "labor productivity" has nothing to do with why exec wants us all back in the bullpen, where they can gleefully stare at us from inside their offices.

Undoubtedly the internet makes more remote roles possible. I’m just saying the business already hates paying for the office. Their incentive is aligned with regards to having less office space.

I'm arguing that maybe businesses don't actually hate it. Maybe execs love it and prioritize it.

> Their incentive is aligned with regards to having less office space.

Really? Then why do you think that return-to-office is mandated by so many large organizations? By following that line of thinking then surely their larger footprint would yield even larger savings for work-from-home?

Because they believe it will optimize their labor costs (the most expensive part of white collar business ).

They give employees space in that building so that people have a dedicated space to do their work, free from outside distraction.

Productivity is difficult to measure. I suspect many managers just don't know how to do it, or are not very confident about the results. In-person interactions in an office give managers additional information (such as height). For many, it makes management tasks easier to carry out and generally less stressful (but not necessarily with objectively improved results, I assume).

I think this assumes there are no conflicts of interest?

You start a successful business- when do you start paying for an office?

This is very much an open question.