[serial_dev]

I honestly think it comes down to this in the majority of the cases.

"Look, we have a two-years contract where we pay X thousand dollars a month for 100 desks and we have on an average day 3 developers in our office. After one year of lockdowns, we know our developers work at least as well from home as from the office, but higher ups ask us why we pay so much for an empty building, so we will force you come back to the office as soon as we can, even if we don't save any money with that and most likely decrease our efficiency and employee satisfaction."

I live in Germany and that's more or less what's happening at my company as we speak. Nobody complained about our performance or said they wished the company would enforce "work from office" rules, yet, they already try to slowly increase the days where we need to work from the office.

In my opinion, once a month in the office is great for chatting and connecting with people, but when it comes to work output, it doesn't move the needle, it's actually a day lost to the business.

[jrs235]

Sunk cost fallacy! Keep it empty and save on the variable electric and heating/cooling costs.

[actually_a_dog]

There's another aspect here, too. Companies get tax breaks to put offices in certain locations, and those tax breaks are frequently based on having a certain percentage occupancy.

[lanstin]

Yeah I have been going in as requested but without my laptop. I am happy to chat but not going to pretend to do actual creative work.