And how is that not doable remotely? "Learning new technology" can be done at home (or whenever the employee decides) and deployment will happen in a remote server or in the cloud. So, again, how this full remote prevents grow and invent for employees?

Why does this involve the office? It's just my experience, RL meetings are useful for 'breaking the ice' with colleagues, but otherwise remote collaboration = in office collab. This excludes all meta-issues and politics