Are companies who insist RTO is helping productivity correcting their data to account for the non-zero cohort of employees who are probably badging in, attending a meeting or two via video call, and spending the rest of their time in-office applying for remote jobs?

They don't care about data - the data shows they're wrong about RTO in the first place lol

At this point I have to believe that all RTO policies are in place to get rid of staff without paying severance.

IDT that was the main impetus but it's definitely a big bonus for these companies.. There were some that gave up on real estate bc of the pandemic, but most companies seem to have the mindset of "sure we'll hemorrhage our best workers, but the REAL ESTATE !!!" Priorities~

I saw a good post about this the other day on Bluesky that made the point that taking the more immediate loss for longer term/future gains is just incomprehensible to these people lol Short-sighted thinking is so prevelent in everything these days