I don't have a particularly strong stance on RTO, but I can't help but call it how much less rigorous HN is when talking about this issue than, say, anything that doesn't affect them.
The putative ways in which poorly organized remote/hybrid work are supposed to affect a company -- culture, creativity, and the other things that come out of personal interaction and long-term proximity -- are things that operate on a multi-year timescale. No half-ass study on a few short term productivity metrics, looking at an RTO process that barely spans one year, are going to surface that. OTOH it's likely to be obvious to people actually in the environment long before it has a measurable impact on any kind of balance sheet
The putative ways in which poorly organized remote/hybrid work are supposed to affect a company -- culture, creativity, and the other things that come out of personal interaction and long-term proximity -- are things that operate on a multi-year timescale. No half-ass study on a few short term productivity metrics, looking at an RTO process that barely spans one year, are going to surface that. OTOH it's likely to be obvious to people actually in the environment long before it has a measurable impact on any kind of balance sheet