I'm sympathetic to this position, but I do wonder: is it actually easier for underperforming employees to hide when they're remote? I feel like, anecdotally, they are pretty good at hiding in person too.

Maybe it makes them try harder to appear busy with real work when people are around to hover over their cubes, but I'm unconvinced that you can really wring blood from a stone.

Maybe around the edges the "personal touch" is enough to inspire (or frighten) an employee in a way that remote communication does not allow, but I've not seen many poor performers actually improve unless they were already personally motivated to do better themselves.