It's dishonest to paint them that way, but it's fair to point out they're trying to solve the wrong problem. You say "a lot of employees take advantage of work

It's dishonest to paint them that way, but it's fair to point out they're trying to solve the wrong problem. You say "a lot of employees take advantage of work from home to work as little as possible" - I guarantee you that's not what employees are setting out to do. No one went, at the start of the pandemic "oh thank God I am remote; now I can not do my job". What they're facing is a variety of things; reduced social bonds (not just at work but generally), a deviation from normalcy (which creates stress and makes productivity harder), and likely a culture that was transplanted from in person, without figuring out how to make remote work. But your statement is definitely how a lot of managers think, "people are taking advantage", which is why the fix, according to those managers, is to bring people back in, where they can feel the pressure of being watched. So you're not wrong in describing motivation...but the implication that these managers have correctly diagnosed and solved the problem is wrong. What I've noticed is that without going into the office, the -already existing issues- become more apparent and more morale sucking, and it makes it harder to care about (and thus do) the work. Every obstacle feels harder because I don't have social glue to make me feel it needs to be overcome. Etc. The correct solution isn't to reinforce that social glue to better trick people into overlooking the issues, but to identify and fix the issues. But that's harder than mandating people come back into the office.