They knew. They say that because they don't actually want to fulfill their employees needs.

We want to WFH because we dont want a 2hr unpayed commute. The way that ks fixed is for employees to consider the commute part of their 9-5 but that means we are really only doing 10-4 with an hour from lunch.

We want WFH because our lunch breaks don't easily get taken over by meetings because we arent sitting at our desk of the break room. The hour is an actual hour you can't contact me so more "lost time".

With WFH its harder to keep people around after hours as they can quickly mark their chat so to afk. That means no more 4:30 pop ins saying we need to stay late.

Turns out that when your employees can force their work time no one givea away free time. When you end WFH and try to squeeze out more time you're going to piss off a lot of people.