Employees – yikes, sounds like we should do something about that. Can you tell us how you are measuring productivity? Is shipping velocity slower? Is our revenue lower than projected? Maybe we need to adjust priorities or roadmaps? Let's come up with a plan to make sensible product and process changes that will help us better hit our targets.
Management – ...
Employees – can we even say for sure that productivity is down?
Management – we can, trust us.
Employees – ok, what can we do about it?
Management – 10% of you are fired.
Employees – that will just make the remaining people less productive.
Management – and everyone has to come in to the office 3 days a week.
Employees – but we were hired as fully remote. Most of us don't even live near an office. What will this accomplish?
Management – this will fix all our problems, trust us.
Employees – but what problems are we trying to fix?
The worst part of this is that a year later these companies will magically declare that all employees are 2.37x more productive now, and WFH was always a mistake. The corporate world/media will eat it up, and so office culture will get even more entrenched.