The question is what you mean when you say "better work". Are you able to unblock new grads more quickly at home? Are you able to achieve consensus on a new product direction more quickly at home? Or are you able to write code better at home, because you can keep the the new grads and product managers in your Slack backlog for as many hours as you need to maximize code throughput?
I don't want to put words in your mouth, but every time I've had this conversation in the past it's been that last option.
What you will be doing in your office environment will be unblocking that new grad in 20 minutes and then putting your noise-canceling headphones on and concentrating on your screen for the rest of the day.
And if new grads and product managers are actually able to easily disrupt an IC who is concentrating, that is a sh*tty workplace.
Well, right, that's what it usually comes back to. If you expect to spend all but 20 minutes of your day concentrating on your screen doing solo work, remote work is definitely the best model. The managers pushing RTO want ICs to spend more time collaborating than that.
I don't want to put words in your mouth, but every time I've had this conversation in the past it's been that last option.