I'm sure I don't understand. You were paying someone for 40 hours a week and getting ~5. Why was this not apparent to their management? Or, if it was, why was nothing done about it?
The problem that your organization pays someone for 8x the output they're getting is definitely a problem, but if your management's only solution to this problem is to force the entire workforce to commute to an office, I think the bigger problem that should be addressed is that your management sucks.
Either they're not producing enough output to warrant their salary - in which case you have good grounds to fire them regardless - or they're perfectly productive - in which case why does it matter?
The biggest issue many managers have is that they have no idea how to measure employee output, separately from time spent at the desk imor in meetings.
It's not a straw-man, I've seen behavior in the past year that I've never seen in my entire career things as absurd as someone working 7 other jobs while pretending to work for us.
Frankly it isn't worth the risk or waste of time or money anymore. Thankfully just by saying you need to be in the office a few days a week will weed out 90% of timewasters.
>employers who have a delusion that their workplace is important enough that people need to sacrifice a large portion of their lives just for the opportunity to be there in person.
Employers don't owe you a living, you're welcome to go work somewhere that's fine with you not showing up.