> This is sane for business because executives can focus on maximizing the input metrics, without caring too much about the outputs, and evaluate separately the assumptions they made about the business...

That's basically the problem right there. If you treat the employees as a giant black box, you don't observe when workplace policies (that might not even work!) get in the way of human decency, let alone helping a diverse group of employees each flourish in their own way.

Employers instead sit around wondering why there aren't enough Latino engineers without even considering a remote work policy that would let engineers live in El Paso, Phoenix, Los Angeles, or Miami.