A pessimistic person might say that companies don’t trust their employees to work unless they have absolute control over their employees and how they work.
It’s a power play. Companies need to know they’re in charge.
How is this not more applicable to remote work where your company can track nearly every interaction you have with a colleague?
In-office I’ve had several discussions with colleagues about the state of the company, as well as competing companies looking for new hires etc. The number of those conversations have dropped to 0 since we went all remote, for obvious reasons.
It’s a power play. Companies need to know they’re in charge.