It's something I noticed at the start of the pandemic. Since we no longer had in-person social events or do simple things like get together for lunch as a team, work felt far more transactional to me. I had less connection to people I worked with since I wasn't in the same physical spaces and couldn't communicate in more human, non-verbal ways. The fact that you had to plan meetings or phone calls added even more to the transactional nature since now you could track when and how often you were communicating with others.

I also felt like I had to over-emote on Zoom to make sure people saw my reaction since I was just a tiny box on their screen.

On the whole, I think remote work made it clearer to employees that their relationship to their job was truly transactional, and I think companies recognize that and that's probably one reason why many want people back in the office.