[JKCalhoun]

Apparently for employers as well:

"Employers saw benefits, too: 70% reported that recruiting workers was easier once they went to a four-day schedule—a boon in a country where many industries complain that intense competition for talent drives up costs. A dozen participants reported details of their financial performance, showing revenue and profit were stable overall."

[Vegenoid]

The exact same things have been shown for WFH as well, but that data is being overridden by the emotions and gut feelings of CEOs. When investors are pressuring you to make more money, doing RTO is a big, highly visible thing that feels good and is much simpler than analyzing and improving a business's fundamentals.

[btbuildem]

It's not about productivity, profitability, or anything measurable like that. It's about control, about keeping "us" different from "them". "Us" being the better, more worthy people, who deserve to enjoy life, and "them" being dirty lowly workers, who should be happy they have jobs, keep their heads down and not grumble.

[consteval]

A measure could up productivity by 1 bajillion percent, but if it grants employees more happiness, mobility, and control it's dead in the water.

The business world is not rationale by any means. The people in positions of control to make these decisions made it there because they LOVE being in control. They will often hurt themselves purely to maintain a delusion of strength. This self-destructive nature is an inherent flaw of humanity. Very few people have the ability to even recognize their own self-destruction, let alone fix it.