Sure, but Dell has numbers saying the employees were more productive out of the office. So they now have their executives making recommendations going against their own numbers. To me this sounds like going by "gut instinct" rather than following the numbers.
Yes, but things change. Maybe numbers were better for a while. Remember what it's like when you start a new job? Everything is new. It's fun. You get a lot done--maybe even more than required. Then when the novelty wears off, you fall into a routine, learn your boundaries, follow the path laid by co-workers, and so on. Your productivity falls into company norms.
I'm not saying for sure this is what happened with Dell when it went to WFH scheduling, but it probably did. However, the problem is that there is a disconnect from the company culture when working from home. Workers cannot see what peers are doing. The only real feedback they have been getting is whether they are turning in enough work to make their supervisors happy, which is also subject to change.
Again. The bottom line is the bottom line. It doesn't matter what the productivity numbers were three years ago or what executives said in the past. All corporate decisions are motivated by money. It is a genuine possibility--in fact, it's highly likely Dell, Apple, Microsoft, and all these other companies calling workers back to the office have found productivity is higher in-house in the long run. IF for some reason, they are calling people back so they could lose all this purported productivity, then every executive involved in making that call should be forced to resign because they are not acting in the best interest of the company and its shareholders.