I'm barely being facetious. "That polite chuckle" is really a stand in for all the soft power they wield in person that evaporates with WFH. They have lost a degree of control and power, it is basic human nature to look for a way to claw that back.
I bet Amazon's exercise is a hidden layoff process. Other companies probably want to get their money's worth from the office buildings. The management of others wants to see the army of smiling minions that report to them. Others want to see people in the office for control (make sure they're not enjoying too long breaks, or working from the beach, or working double jobs in parallel, etc.). And some believe that people will interact better, easier if they're in physical proximity. Or a mix of this even between managers from the same company.
And sometimes I think some cities push employers to get people back in office because they have no better idea how to keep those centers of activity vibrant, alive, and contributing financially. I remember reading some city authorities complaining that RTO means the death of the city center and the businesses tied to it.
I don't see why there would be one reason to rule them all.
From https://www.thehrobserver.com/indepth/laughing-at-the-bosss-...
>You mentioned that humour and power is intertwined – what is the social impact of this?
>If a boss is trying to be funny, they are automatically trying to get a response, so the use of humour is never neutral or irrelevant. People have a split second to decide whether or not to fake a laugh, or even how much to laugh – trying to figure out if the boss thinks a particular joke is a little funny or a lot funny. At the same time, they are trying to decide what the consequences of not laughing might be.
original paper https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amj.2022.0195
So if a leader wants, requires, needs, is addicted to that feeling that people are submitting to them, then things will eventually go downhill as in the end the only people who will work for them will be "yes men".
"That polite chuckle" is really a stand in for all
the soft power they wield in person that evaporates
with WFH. They have lost a degree of control and power,
it is basic human nature to look for a way to claw
that back.
My hunch is that the corporate executive's thirst for power generally works a little differently than that, in ways I find it difficult to express.
Why do people want those executive jobs? Quite honestly I don't feel the primary appeal for them lies in the minutia of those in-person interactions -- the polite chuckles and such.
I do not think they typically care about Cubicle Slave #58332 enough to be gratified when they (either individually, or in aggregate) give up that polite chuckle for an unfunny joke. For them, that would be like caring about whether or not an insect laughed at their jokes -- and caring about your token genuflections, about your small personal humiliations, is still caring.
So what is the appeal for them? Well, money and status, occasionally with some loyalty and/or core belief in the company added to the mix.
People are going to stay or leave based on random criteria. Your company is going to be left with various deficits and it will take a long while to sort out the hiring mess.
This feels more like it's about power. Those with the power leave, likely to competitors.
Immediate supervisors usually know who is good and should be empowered to decide who can WFH. And who they don't want to lose.
Diktats from god are a sign of a disfunctional org.