I bet the real story is one of retention, which is not always what companies want to advertise. If you’re going into the office, it’s harder to find time to schedule interview.
But on top of that, going into the office and talking to real people and building relationships is going to result in you wanting to stay with the company for longer. This is what I like about going into the office. I don’t know if I work any more effectively, but I do like getting lunch with people and just hanging out, and I do feel a greater attachment to the team as a result. If I were totally remote, I surely would just be working for the highest bidder.
I can tell you with certainty it's the opposite of retention. Point #3 on prakhar897 comment is pretty much everything, nobody is hiring, firing is happening across all F500 just slowly enough to fly under the radar.
Avoid IRL meetings, even if the other person is sitting 5 meters away, why? because productivity measuring software gets no data points if you meet IRL, you are instead measured as AFK. If you VC, the productivity software measures your attendance, how much time you spent talking versus others, is your video on, your adherence to the calls schedule, and depending on the VC software, it can even analyze the transcript and decide if your input / the entire meeting was valuable. Managers can get an aggregate roll up of all this data and great insights into which departments, team members an individual most interacted with... it goes on and on.
At most mega corps you may not be informed yet, but you are already living in a corporate Orwellian dystopia.
In all your corporate comms, on chat or on VC, Make no jokes, speak no niceties reduce small talk, use positive words but not too much, since the machine is bad at understanding, humor, cynicism or sarcasm. Don't ramble, the machine is good at boiling down emotional or spirited ramblings about directions are very bad, they are boiled down to, "not a fit".
Retention doesn't seem to be a real focus - there are still layoffs happening. If anything, the other angle for RTO is a form of constructive dismissal to augment the RIFs without taking the hit for severance.
Using RTO to get rid of people is such a catastrophically bad management strategy. You have no control over who is going to leave, so you could just end up encouraging you most valuable or even critical people to leave. That may happen anyway, no doubt, but that should not be your goal.
Doubt it because companies usually spend more on recruitment than retention. Sometimes hiring for the same position at a higher range than the one given to existing employees for the same role.
But on top of that, going into the office and talking to real people and building relationships is going to result in you wanting to stay with the company for longer. This is what I like about going into the office. I don’t know if I work any more effectively, but I do like getting lunch with people and just hanging out, and I do feel a greater attachment to the team as a result. If I were totally remote, I surely would just be working for the highest bidder.