Comment by Aurornis
Valid question, but it's quite obvious: The shift to WFH was sudden and rushed, so now the number of people who need to be brought back in the office is huge.
You can't go through a company and retroactively subtract a benefit from ~half of the people without getting completely buried under discrimination lawsuits from angry people who think you forced them into the office but let Bob WFH because you're illegally discriminating.
So the companies are changing the policy for everyone and then granting "exceptions" on a case by case basis going forward, using newly defined criteria.
Again, please don't downvote the messenger. I'm just describing what's happening, not saying I approve.
I mean, layoffs are always sudden and rushed, but companies don't seem to mind thrusting people into that new situation. Also, I'm sorry, but we've had about six years to figure this out (i.e. to get Zoom volume licensing). Any company that hasn't figured out how to set up a VPN and video chat by now is uh... slow.