It’s the companies saying that productivity has gone down, so I’m very curious: how do they know? They never seem to say.

Management could say “come RTO because I prefer it that way” in which case asking for productivity data would be silly, but management doesn’t say that because it’d be unconvincing and indicative of vibe-based management.

More than once in my career I have worked for companies that have moved office locations. In all the cases I certainly wasn’t consulted ahead of time or given a vote. To my knowledge, no one beyond the executive leadership had a vote in the location. I am not sure why RTO vs WFH is any different.

Correct! They are obviously not required to produce evidence! But the question wasn’t “are they required to produce evidence,” it was “what’s the evidence,” and so the provided answer here amounts to “I don’t know/I don’t have any/I don’t know if they have any”