I think there are three alternative hypotheses the article misses from its list:

* Ego: senior people need to be seen and respected in person; being reduced to equally-sized thumbnail videos on Teams doesn't feed this need.

* Real estate: some companies have financial commitments (e.g. long-term leases, owned buildings) to large office buildings which need to be justified; selling or ending the lease early might reflect badly on leadership.

* Extroverts: some people just prefer to be in an office, surrounded by and interacting with lots of people, rather than sitting at home in relative isolation. (I'm definitely not one of them, but I have good friends who are like this.)

> * Extroverts: some people just prefer to be in an office, surrounded by and interacting with lots of people, rather than sitting at home in relative isolation. (I'm definitely not one of them, but I have good friends who are like this.)

You know what, since the dawn of work - it's always been the extroverted way. Introverts suffered through. Now that the tide has changed, let the extroverts suffer too, it's their turn. We have done our part.

> Ego

We can give them bigger/more-prominent zoom portraits by seniority. Should make everyone happy.

> Real estate

Probably shouldn't still be gambling company finances on real estate, 5 years after a pandemic forced us all to go remote.

> Extroverts

Great! We can put all the extroverts back in the glass fishbowl, while the rest of us do actual work from home

Do these extroverts have a job that requires any level of focus? I'm also pretty much an extrovert but if I need to get any work done, being in the office is actually counterproductive for me and for people who I interact with.

One additional reason: all the other CEOs are mandating it at their companies. Can't be the odd man out in the CEO group chat.

* Doing summin: Gotta be seen doing something to move a needle. Doesn't matter if the needle is a compass, odometer or voltmeter, as long as it swings up or to the right.

> Ego: senior people need to be seen and respected in person

The funny thing is that the CEO of my current employer lives in Connecticut and rarely (ever?) comes into the office in Manhattan. When he does come in, they shut the office down for "leadership meetings" so all the New York based employees can't come in anyway!

The missing one is: “Poor managers - do not base the decisions on data, and are not qualified to deal with the remote/spread out/async processes”

I wonder if it can be a genuine attempt to save positions. E.g. the board might be asking why they keep remote employees in the US instead of letting them go and hiring in a cheaper location

And extroverts are probably a high proportion of upper management.

>selling or ending the lease early might reflect badly on leadership.

Why? If the lease was signed before the pandemic that gives a very easy "out". It's not like anyone could have predicted the pandemic and the associated shift to WFH. If for whatever reason they signed afterwards, that's just them being dumb.

I think the bigger driver is that cities and states are pressuring companies to RTO because of the massive negative impact to local businesses and governments who no longer have thousands of people coming into a particular area on a daily basis.