This completely came out of the blue. I always knew that home office would end as soon as it started but this seems like a last minute decision from the senior leadership team. They are giving us two weeks to return to the office, there is no wiggle room or the ability for middle management to make exceptions for their workers (I actually really like my coworkers and lower management) and supposedly your on site attendance will be monitored by IT and there will be quarterly reviews by HR to discipline people who don't comply.
I work for a fortune 500 so I know that there are a lot of things senior management does for social engineering reasons rather than financial reasons. The weird part to me is how quickly it came. There has been literally no indication anything was changing from anyone, whether it be directors or the CEO. We even have these "town hall" meetings that are (ostensibly) to give everyone updates on what's going on with the company. We had one of these town hall's exactly two weeks before the back to work announcement came and the only explanation I have is they are sick of paying severance packages so they're trying to get people to leave or collect enough HR violations to fire them.
What's funny is the "official" story for why they want workers back is because of how much they value "face-to-face interaction" that fosters "team collaberation" but most of my team is out of state or out of the country and I haven't been able to do any face-to-face collaberation with them in 2 years because of budget mandated travel restrictions.
The real reason they are doing this is because someone who pulls the strings realizes there are too many workers who benefit from working from home and they want to screw it up for us because f-you that's why.
Also, one of the big reasons for dei is the endless micro conflicts it causes. The sheboon who can barely do entry level work can’t complain about your ass when everything is in chat or witnessed in meetings. No chance for your water cooler talk to backfire and you don’t get that promotion/raise.
That and it’s crazy easy for whites to withhold training for dei. No more popping into a cubicle to ask a quick question. Harder to get roped into doing their work for them. Which is another way the company suppresses your wages and get more productivity out of you.
It’s playing out a lot like how body cameras did.
His recent statements about h1b may shed some light on his disdain for people working from home.
I read somewhere that DC gov employees also get 30% extra pay to cover cost of living expenses and transportation expenses. I don't think these were ever removed when everything shifted to work at home.